


Paladin of Dust

by Teturo



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, F/F, F/M, Family Drama, Friendship/Love, Multi, Ozpin actually administrates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2018-10-31 06:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 47,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10893303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teturo/pseuds/Teturo
Summary: There are many ways that Aura, the light of the soul, Semblances and Dust mix to give Hunters the power to fight the creatures of Grimm. What if one thought lost to history and legend were found again?What if there’s more to the story of why Pyrrha liked Jaune than he treated her like a normal girl?What if it was because he’d always treated her like someone precious that he wanted to protect?What if there’s more to the champion then just being the champion?Let’s introduce something new to tangle the pattern and find out.





	1. A Shining Beacon

"You can never catch The Mysterious Fox!" The boy's shout was followed almost immediately by a series of splashes. She glanced at her sister before both of them ran over to the top of the wet grass covered slope leading to the stream and found the mask wearing boy, who had distracted the trappers with water balloons before running off, dangling from a rope swing.

"Um hi?" The girls giggled at his lame opening before her sister leaned against the tree to reach out with the walking stick they had been using to spring snares that morning. Her sister snagged the rope with the hooked end of the stick and she wrapped her arms around her sister's waist so they could pull together to bring their rescuer back to safety. She had to struggle not to sneeze as when her sister shifted to take the boy's hand for the final pull the tips of her sister's red ponytail brushed against her nose.

"I just was going to scare you brats for messing with our traps before, but now I am going to tear you limb from limb." Stepping forward she gripped the boy's arm nervously as she glanced down the slope to see the group of four teens were starting to climb out of the water that barely made it to their waists. She guessed the speaker was the burliest one in the front of the group. 

The boom from nearby was followed by the teen pitching back into the water clutching his face. "If your livelihood depends on setting traps for small animals then by Oum put them in places that aren't so obvious that six year olds can find them." A blond teenage huntress in training pronounced calmly as she stepped up beside the tree. The bully came back up from the water spluttering, cursing, and nursing a bruise already forming almost directly between his eyes. The older girl's rifle shifted into a cavalry saber that she casually rested against her shoulder next to her white breastplate. "As for trying to cause any harm to these kids I will just say that was the only rubber bullet that I have loaded, and the far bank looks much easier to climb then this one."

The group of trappers slogged their way across the wide stream and disappeared into the forest on the other side. "Are you all alright?" The young woman asked as she turned back to them. She nodded in response, and the huntress grinned a bit impishly at the sight of the girls holding onto the boy, before reaching into her pocket and taking out a Scroll. "Doesn't the hero usually get rewarded for rescuing the fair maidens?"

She glanced at her sister and saw a similar grin. the boy yelped in surprise as her sister reached from behind his back to pull the paper-mâché mask up revealing his bright blue eyes before they both leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek.

The colors of the memory faded as she looked at the snow covered evergreens outside the window. Those born in Solitas called this early spring but as far as she was concerned it was the dead of winter just coming out of an even worse frozen hell. With the only milder by comparison summer still months away. The only food that could be grown here was in greenhouses, and the only comfort in the hot spring and Dust warmed buildings.

The memory only made her ache to see Anima again even worse. There was no knight or dashing rogue to rescue her here. A sword and shield no more use then a rope swing and water balloons against the army of Atlas or the man that said there would be hell to pay if they were to let her leave.

Her mother had been crafty enough to take what she wanted and leave, but that required both planning and funds. She didn't have the Lien to buy her way onto a ship, and before that if she could slip past security she would likely freeze to death before she could make it to a port. The only solace she had was that thanks to her semblance she could deny him the things he really wanted her for, the Dust spell forms her family had spent generations developing and perfecting. She could spin synthetic threads that could have any density of dust from none to so packed together the polymers could barely contain them. Without destructive analysis no one else would be able to tell which it was and then they would never know if the pattern would have worked.

Her Scroll beeped and a glance showed her it was the summons she had been waiting for.  
Gray, utilitarian, colorless... these words describe the walls of a prison just as well as the military inspired hallways of Atlas Academy. Opening a door a slightly darker shade of gray then the surrounding walls reveals the office of the institution's headmaster. Appropriately for the man in command of the military as well as the academy it would be better described as a war room with one wall taken up by a large map of Remnant covered in a riot of colored markers showing troop distributions for the kingdom of Atlas, its allies, and potential opposition. 

The powerfully built man himself sits behind a large metal desk in front of a window giving a broad view of the pride of Atlas, its airship armada. Hearing someone enter the room he looks up but does not smile. 

"Trainee Shade thank your prompt attendance, I assume you and the doctor have completed all of the tests of your semblance that he feels are needed for the present?" 

"We have sir, he also instructed me in the maintenance of the camera drone you authorized for me to use at my next assignment." She stood at attention in front of his desk and saluted. "I can be ready to leave at any time."

"At ease." The general does give a small smile now as his blue eyes lock onto her dark reddish brown. "You are likely curious why I asked you to make preparations so early."

"It is not a soldier's place to question." She settles into a more relaxed stance with her hands behind her back crossed over a wide pouch on a thick belt, the dark brown of both a sharp contrast to the grey of her academy tunic and skirt, but matching the color of the scarf around her neck. The golden brown of her hair flashing where it sticks out slightly from the back of her grey beret as she shakes her head in the negative. "Your orders stand absolute in the academy General Ironwood, but it does strike me as odd with more then a month before the new academic year starts."

"How would you like to demonstrate how well Atlas technology combines with your dust weaving and hand to hand skill combat skill?" The man stands up from the desk and approaches from around it to tower over the girl, with the top of her beret barely reaching his shoulders. "The regional tournament will be held in Mistral in a few days time, as a citizen you are eligible and we would like you to participate."

"I would enjoy doing that sir." The smile she gives is almost malicious, but soon fades. "My father has voiced no objection to this plan?"

"On the contrary, he seems very enthusiastic about you showing off the power you can elicit from Dust." The large man holds back a sigh at seeing the tightening of her eyes and the clenching of her jaw. 

"Specialist Schnee will be escorting you." She turned to see the twenty something young woman with skin a pale pink color and white hair, the same color as her crisp uniform, done up in a bun with one long bang trailing across the left side of her face nearly hiding her pale blue eye. Who until the general had pointed her out, had been hidden by the door as she walked into the room. "You can leave immediately after gathering what equipment you feel you will need."

"Understood sir." The girl salutes to which the General responds. "You are dismissed."

The girl turned sharply and gave another salute to the officer. "Mam I should be ready to leave within the hour." The white haired woman nods and gives a brief salute in return. 

After she marched out of the room and closed the door firmly she adjusted her beret and leaned against the far wall. Closing her eyes she focused all her hearing just in time to hear Winter address the general. "You could have simply told her you wanted to give her a chance to visit her mother before going to live in Vale." 

"There are two issues with that Winter." The man replies with a heavy sigh while the thud of his boots and the quieter sound making her assume he turned to look out the window. "The council would not have allowed it, and she would never have believed there were no strings attached."

"Just like this mission to study the teaching techniques at Beacon isn't intended to remove her from the tug of war she has been the center of?" She smiled a little at the older girl's tone.

"I have earned some respect by treating her fairly, and trusting her with full knowledge of an important project." The man concedes as the sound of his steps move closer making her guess he moved around his desk. "That however will not overcome the resentment of me being unable to simply let her go home. So for the time being I will leave her in your care."

"What about the other issue with the tournament?" She heard the man sigh again in response before his steps stopped in front of where Winter had been standing when she left the room. 

"If an opportunity to put out that fire before it can cause an explosion presents itself you have full discretion to take whatever actions you feel necessary." 

"Then with your permission I will start preparing my airship to leave." Winter says crisply and she could almost imagine the sharp salute the specialist gave the general before her steps headed to the door.

As the door opened she opened her eyes and gave the specialist a very tight smile.

Winter closed the office door an looked at her with a carefully neutral expression. "I thought you were packing to leave." 

"I have been packed for three years specialist." It hadn't been so much a question as an observation, but she felt like answering anyway. "Besides when in hostile territory the only weapon you can really rely on is information. I would hardly make an effective agent if I forgot that now could I?"

"I wish you didn't feel that way Umber." Winter placed a hand on her shoulder and she looked away from the older girl.

"It's an unavoidable consequence." Pushing away from the wall and slipping away from Winter, she walked down the hall a short distance before looking back over her shoulder. "I will grab my footlocker from my dorm and meet you at the sky dock."

R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y

The two day trip by airship from Atlas to Mistral passed uneventfully and while she was happy to see her mother most of the time in the week before the tournament was spent with her mother trying to teach her as many new patterns as she could. Then going over what details her mother had on possible opponents Umber would face.

The preliminaries were almost laughable, all of her opponents were first or second year students at Sanctum that had entered for fun. Umber had to think that someone who wanted to make sure she made it to the portion of the tournament that would actually be broadcast was responsible. None of them had required more than some basic blocks and a few blasts of Wind Dust to knock out of the ring. Given the sponsorship logos were either the cute rabbit head of Pumpkin Pete or a blade like snowflake it really was not hard to guess.

"For our quarter-final round match the first competitor is Sanctum's own Sage Ayana!" As the dark skinned boy's name is called he spins around on the stage swinging his large double edged sword in an arc over his green haired head. This also causes his unbuttoned white duster with green stripes to flap open wider allowing more of his well toned chest and abs to be exposed to the crowd, resulting in the overall pitch of the cheers to noticeably increase. He finishes his spin to find her giving him a rueful grin and a chuckle. While he looked impressive, there wasn't much of a threat he could offer.

What do you take the most pride in?

What defines you?

As a hunter? As a person?

That is what I will take.

That is what I will CRUSH!

"His opponent is also a former student of Sanctum, Miss Umber Shade!" The litany running through her head, she tipped her nearly flat conical hat with her left hand and gave an elaborate bow with her left foot forward showing off the silver grey armor on her knee high boots. Holding her shield covered right arm up causes the dark brown mantle over her shoulders to shift open exposing the armor plate on the front of her thighs going over a complex spiral of ribbons, and leading up to the grey armored one piece bodysuit she is wearing. It is divided up into sections by dark brown straps giving the impression of a climbing harness with built in emphasis of her own well developed chest. Resulting in a significant drop in pitch for the accompanying cheers. 

She returned to a ready stance allowing the mantle to settle over her upper arms with the multitude of silver beads on it creating scintillating patterns in the stadium lights. A small gap leaving a tantalizing glimpse of the silver plates running all the way down the front of her bodysuit from just below her chest broken only by the brown belt at her waist, further tempting the eye her wide stance allows the inside hem of the mantle to be glimpsed just below her hips in the back. The view above now blocked by the small targe shield on her left arm held at ready just below her chin. 

"Why a fox with a curled up tail?" Sage called out at seeing the embossed profile on the shield's surface. "Are they asleep?"

"Call it a sign that you will have to work hard to impress me." Umber responded playfully. "It will be very hard for you to catch my babies' tails wagging, but they aren't asleep." For emphasis four 10 cm wide rectangular boxes in the shield's edge did a fast full spin around the circumference before stopping at their original positions. 

"Fighters ready?!" The boisterous announcer calls, seeing a raised hand from both participants a three second countdown started flashing on the holoscreens around the arena.

As zero flashed and a horn sounds both rushed forward, Umber leading with her shield and Sage leading with his right shoulder. As the two close Sage brought his sword forward in a powerful raising slash, Umber responded by bringing both her shields together in front of her to block the attack. With a loud clang Umber was launched into the air, having been braced to power through her block and meeting almost no resistance Sage stumbled and skidded across the ground on his knees. 

Umber did a graceful midair flip and floated gently toward the ground. Her mantle flaring out seemingly caught in a powerful updraft. Sage turned to track her, and as he got one foot on the floor to charge an explosion went off around him filling the area with trailers of mist. As the mist clears it is revealed that the boy is trapped in a jagged block of ice up to his neck with only the blade of his sword extending out. As Umber settles to the ground flashes keep appearing around the blade making the metal crackle ominously and be covered in layers of frost.

"Whh...h..y so. so cold?" He got out through chattering teeth. "I...I. tho...ught vixens were supp...ose..d to be wa...r.m and cudd...ly."

"You would like to see me in heat then?" Umber's glare could have bored through stone, completely at odds with her teasing tone. He wasn't the one she was really angry at for making sure everyone knew her trait, but he was there. Her smile turned wicked as spirals of flame appear around the sword blade quickly going from red to harsh blue white. "Be careful what you wish for." She bent forward blowing him a kiss just as the blade explosively shattered throwing him across the arena, and according to the arena's big screen driving his aura deep into the red.

"Winner with no damage taken, Umber Shade!!!" She stalked off the stage, the announcer's words almost felt like they were chasing her. That man had put that boy in front of her to use as a punching bag and she had taken the bait. Arslan or Neptune would have had more of a chance but the brackets were fixed so they both would have to take on Pyrrha, who she would only face if she made it to the finals.

Once in the locker room she quickly stripped off her light armor. Trading it, her mantle, and her weapons for her academy tunic and blouse from the locker she quickly went up into the stands and found the booth her mother and Winter were watching the tournament from. As she fell into the blond haired woman's embrace she couldn't hold back her sobs any longer.

That day's fighting had finished with Pyrrha's not unexpected victory over Neptune Vasilias leading to her semi-final match against Arslan Atlan, and now Umber's own against an opponent that she couldn't help but feel was picked for her to have every advantage against.

R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y

"In this semi final match we have the 'Shimmering Fox!' Umber Shade!," She waves to the crowd, her hand pausing when a few jeers come through the cheers. "Versus the 'Gliding Grinder!' Reese Chloris!" The vividly colored skater girl waves to a chorus of much louder cheers.

"That wasn't very nice what you did to Sage." The green haired girl called as she did a kick flip and spun her bladed hover board between her hands.

"Maybe he will remember not to mix up insults with flirting in the future." Umber called back. "Maybe you and other girls in Mistral should thank me."

"I don't think so." Reese's green eyes narrowed at her opponent as she plants her board in front of her left foot and sets her right foot in the middle of it ready to kick the board forward. 

"Fighters Ready!?" Both girls raised a hand in response. Immediately after the countdown Reese jumped on her board, but shot off to the side quickly circling the arena and gaining speed. 

Umber did a slow turn keeping one shield between her and the fast accelerating girl. 

The skater banked harder into her turn bringing her racing towards the shield maiden. Umber dropped to one knee and brought her left shield up at an angle to redirect the straight line attack. 

At the last moment Reese grabbed the front of her board and yanked up hard, sending her shooting into the air. Her board transforming into a pair of guns at the apex of her arc. Flipping over to aim at her grounded target she is surprised to find the fox profile a hairs breath from impacting her face. 

Even after impact Umber continued flying up, snagging the other girl's hood with her trailing hand, dragging her higher into the air. The skater could only try to pull down on the collar of her sweater to keep being able to breathe. The direction of pull suddenly changed back towards the ground and Reese had a moment to glance up..now down at the other girl to see a pair of small thrusters attached to the outside of her boots venting bright green flames. With another pair attached to metal triangles just below the other girl's waist on the outside of the 'short shorts' of her body suit. 

Just before they would have impacted the floor the thrusters swiveled causing them to shoot towards the side of the ring. The thrusters swivel one last time in opposing directions causing Umber to spin, and with a heave of her arm she launched Reese to impact with the protective force barrier before she would have landed in the stands. 

"Winner by ring out! Umber Shade!" Umber was already leaving the arena and the cat calls that were almost as loud as the cheering to her ears. He teeth grinding thinking about how when Pyrrha had won her match earlier the audience had only applauded.

Umber quickly rejoined her mother and hugged her tightly. "You've become quite the aerial dancer." All she wanted to do was go home and enjoy sleeping in her childhood bed away from all this.

R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y*R*W*B*Y

The final day of the tournament dawned bright and sunny. Umber simply couldn't decide if she should be encouraged by this or that the weather was simply mocking her mood. The press coverage was glowing for the champion and going on about her own chances of causing an upset.

"To start our tournament final!, We gladly welcome the defending three time champion! The 'Invincible Girl!' Miss Pyrrha Nikos!" The announcement is greeted by a cacophony of cheering as the bronze and scarlet clad girl walks onto the arena floor while waving to the crowds.

"Her challenger is the ever Surprising! Some even calling her Unblockable! The 'Shimmering Fox!' Miss Umber Shade!" Umber smiles and waves to the crowd as she enters the arena, but her smile isn't long lived. While there are still cheers they are much more muted, and the jeering has grown nearly as loud. 

Now with the red head in front of her the girl's mind wanders back to the last time she had seen then newly minted champion just a few years before. 'Hey Umber why do they have you on the concert poster?' Just like then she glanced down at the tanned skin of her hands before clenching them into fists. 'That isn't even close to funny Pyrrha.' The words echo in her mind. The poor joke having been one of her last happy memories of home in Mistral before they went together into the VIP section of the charity concert. 

Only one of them was able to leave freely that day. 'She wasn't at fault!' Umber tries mentally screaming at the knot of anger in her chest. 'He already knew where I was.....' 

"Champion! and Challenger! Are you ready to begin?" One final time for the tournament both girls raise a hand in acknowledgment. 

As the countdown begins, Umber relaxes into a defensive stance with her left arm and hand covered by the forty centimeter wide round shield covering her profile leaving her face uncovered to show her spreading grin. Swinging her similarly adorned right arm back to cover her hip with her leg extended back to give her a strong wide stance. "Are you ready to dance with me Pyrrha?"

The Mistrali champion grins back taking a similar stance with Milo mirroring the lowered shield. "Always"

Further conversation is cut off as the horn sounded the start of this year's final match. The two girls drop into a charge. The inside of the golden haired girl's round hat glows with a pattern of activated dust that would be impossible for anyone other then Pyrrha to see before she dashes forward in a blur. A spin brings the back shield across the champion's body, latching on to Akouo with a metallic grinding. A serrated blade sliding out of the edge of the shield Umber had held higher and spinning around the shield independently of her arm catches and pushes down Milo leaving the taller girl open for the knee impacting with her chest. 

Pyrrha drops backward into a roll bringing her weapons back in toward her body locking into the other combatant's blades and forcing her into a similar recovery roll. Completing a spin to face her opponent again. She finds that what had been a set of four evenly spaced rectangular blocks around the edges of the shields had realigned with three joining together hanging off one side to counter balance the blades, half again as long as the shield is wide, formed of eight centimeter wide sharply spiked links tipped by a final diamond wedge shaped blade extending from the square remaining on the edge of the shield. 

Umber's jaw clenched in frustration, while Pyrrha's grin widened, when she realized she could not make the blades retract to their previous positions. 

The two girls charged each other again, while Umber's movement options were noticeably restricted by having to avoid being sliced by her own blades or hit with the counterweight. The continued free spinning of the two now double ended weapons still proved a largely effective defense against a decisive lunge from her opponent. 

The crowd gasp as the champion suddenly disengaged in a backflip moments before needle like spears of ice crash into where she had been standing. A spinning kick from Umber catches another that had escaped notice before it reaches the ground and redirects its flight directly towards Pyrrha, before retreating at a sprint to gain more distance.

As the redhead charges back forward, she almost casually blocks the sharp ice shard with her shield. To the crowds confusion she extends Milo into its javelin form and starts spinning it around with one hand like a baton as she continues running. Left in her wake the floor of the arena becomes littered with slowly unrolling ribbons of silver silk like material. 

Umber slides and turns in a crouch before blurring back towards Pyrrha, when the two girls are within steps of each other a brilliant flash of light goes off behind the trickster casting their shadows to the wall on the far side of the arena.

Almost unbelievably Pyrrha catches the follow up slashes from Umber's blades with Milo forcing both to the floor, only for the other girl to drop the edges of both shields to the floor and tuck into a forward roll, while the shields spin backwards lifting up on the counterweights and pulling the champion off balance forward. 

The golden haired challenger uncoils like a spring driving both feet into Pyrrha's chest knocking her up and away, as a result the champion crashes into the mat. Umber on the other hand lands in a crouch and with a spin of deadly metal her weapons return to simple shield form.

For the first time in the tournament the champion has actually taken hits, though her Aura is still safely higher than the challenger. The audience stares on in shocked silence as the panting girls size each other up with enthusiastic grins. With a simultaneous yell the two girls rush at each other, to the audience it would seem as though they begin dancing around each other with the clashing of metal setting the beat.

In short order though it becomes clear that Umber's Aura levels are dropping faster. To cheers from the audience, Pyrrha finishes the battle with a shield bash followed by a leg sweep that leaves Umber on the floor as the buzzer sounds announcing her Aura dropping below the safety margin.

Umber had only one thought. 'Your semblance has always been so damn unfair Pyrrha.'

Laying on the ground with an arm covering her face, Umber sighed as she allowed her arm drop and finds Pyrrha holding out a hand to help her up. Rolling onto her left side she brought her right arm behind her back, Umber hooks the handle of her shield to her belt over her hip before reaching up to take the offered hand. As the taller girl helped her off the floor she did the same with the shield on her left, the bottom of the mantle settled into place hiding both from view. 

While she expected Pyrrha to step back so they could face each other for the customary sportsmanship congratulations, she instead found herself drawn into a hug. "I'm so happy to see you again Umber." The taller girl whispered while the crowd broke out in cheers. 

Umber felt her throat clench down hard on the sob that tried to escape, while she wrapped her own arms around the other girl in return. "I missed you to." Tilting her head back so she could look at the other girl's green eyes under the brim of her hat from where her face was nearly pressed into Pyrrha's chest she whispered back. "I struck a deal, with both him and General Ironwood, to live in Vale and enroll at Beacon."

"Aunt Carnelian might have already mentioned that." Pyrrha stepped back with a smile and winked before turning to wave to the audience. "Maybe I will see you there." 

As she walked towards the the judges platform the announcer remembered he had a task to complete. "Winner! and Champion! for the fourth consecutive year! is Pyrrha Nikos!"

Umber grinned before she also turned to wave to the audience while she walked off the stage and was pleased and mildly surprised not to hear any jeers mixed in with the cheering like there had been at the end of her previous matches. 

Walking into the locker room she took off her hat and after undoing some snaps at the back she collapsed it down like spokes circling a wheel at the center, before reaching behind her back and tucking it into something hidden by her mantle. Pulling loose a drawstring she stared removing the garment while being careful not to disturb the long scarf wrapped around her neck, as she did the long tail of her ribbon wrapped golden hair slipped free of the pouch sewn into the top with the end falling to just past her knees. 

Opening a locker to hang the mantle inside she barely flinched as the wing of a single silver white nevermore nearly grazed her ear as it passed over her shoulder dragging the brown piece of cloth with it. As the creature banked to return to where it came from the glowing dust runes on the inside of the scarf faded away as the cloth lightened in color to a rich crimson. 

It lands on a small glyph crafted from hardened light floating above the upturned palm of the Atlas military specialist, an impish grin played across her face reflected in her visible blue eye. The glyph and summon fade away leaving the scarf draped over her arm

Umber's form also shimmers with all the gold and brown of her skin, clothes, and hair fading away until the bodysuit and belt became a uniform metallic gray. Matching the shields hung from the belt separated by the flat pouch nestled in the small of her back. All in stark contrast to the pale white to pink of her skin and hair, except for a few hand spans of golden brown left at the end of her long tail of hair. 

The girl glares at the woman with equally pale blue eyes, "I want my veil back Winter."

"So tell me little sister." Her heals clicking on the floor as she glides forward wrapping the scarf around her own neck. "Were you glad to see Pyrrha still wears the one you left with her?"

"Yes...." Grumbling the girl sits on a bench in front of the locker and starts to remove her boots and shin plates. The ribbons just automatically roll themselves into cylinders in the palm of her hand which quickly disappear into her belt pouch. 

"Well you sound a bit more relaxed at least." Taking a seat beside the girl, she leans over to nudge her shoulder. "You normally do more then glare at me if I steal your scarf."

"It isn't like I could put up a decent fight over it at the moment." Umber bites her lower lip before turning her head to face Winter. "I don't want to be here anymore. Mom and I traded the last thing I could call mine for the chance to go somewhere else and start over, I would greatly prefer to get on with it."

"I don't think it's that bad...." Winter tries to console as she reached to place a hand on the girl's shoulder.

The teen jumps to her feet losing all composure and shrieking. "I don't have anything left! I lost the coloration my mother named me for, days after my aura was unlocked! I lost my home when dear father decided he couldn't just let me live peacefully here in Mistral! Now I don't even get to keep my name!" 

"You are still you, you still can contact your mom, you can reconnect with old friends, you still have your dust weaving skill that I think is unfair with your semblance making it nearly impossible for anyone else to track." Umber tapers off into hiccuping sobs as Winter stands up and firmly grabs her shoulders. "For what it's worth Mistral has refused to recognize the adoption, so to them you remain a Shade. Likewise Vale won't take any action on it until after you officially enroll at Beacon." Leaning forward to press her forehead to the younger woman's she stifles a chuckle at the reminder that barefoot the girl is nearly as tall as her in heels. "Though we weren't involved until after this all started you did gain two sisters and a brother." Reaching up and running a finger through her sister's hair causes two silky furred ears to pop out from where they had been tucked back. "You're also much cuter as a silver fox then a golden one."

"Mom reminded me she holds the same opinion while I was able to visit her this week." The smile dies away quickly as she continues. "Weiss would rather I disappeared though."

"She had a more noble mental image of our father then myself when you were introduced." Winter let out a sigh. "Since you're less than three months younger than her it was also a shock to realize he had been unfaithful to our mother while she was pregnant with Weiss."

"I suppose it is hard to form a better opinion of each other when I only met her the one time at the airship dock when I first arrived in Atlas, before the tin man crashed father's party like a knight in shining armor." The girl finished with a giggle. 

"I don't want to think about where father might have stashed me away if mother had not called in favors to get General Ironwood to enroll me in Atlas Academy and take custody of me from father as soon as his airship landed." She shudders slightly at the memory. "I wasn't sure what to think at first when he suggested you tutor me instead of allow father to test why I didn't inherit the glyph semblance."

"Then don't think about it anymore." Winter laughs as she pushed back gently to look the girl full in the face. "You said you wanted to get started on the new chapter of your life, finish changing clothes and we can take my airship. You can even use the captain's quarters shower."

"The condominium mom is going to help me get to use in Vale isn't going to be available for another week." She responds quietly while turning back to her locker. Taking a shield off the hangers on her belt she lifts the flap on the pouch and slides one inside followed quickly by the other. Taking off the belt and setting it on the bench reveals the dark purple Gravity Dust Crystal sewn into a holder where it would be centered on the girl's spine. 

Umber quickly pulls her beret from the locker and slides her hair into an opening inside the cloth cap at the back, sliding another drawstring closed when only enough to reach her shoulder is left exposed, she flips the hat onto her head forming a small bun. Tucking her fox ears back underneath she settles the front over her forehead.

Stepping into her uniform skirt she quickly zips it up, followed by pulling her tunic top over her bodysuit and buttons up the side.

Putting her belt back on she finally looks up to see the nonplussed expression adorning Winter's face. "I find it comfortable to wear." 

She giggles when Winter sighs, but smiles when her sister gently wraps the scarf around her neck. "Think you can make another one of these, and finally teach me how to use it?" Winter fingers the scarf for emphasis. 

"We could land in Vytal and take a commercial liner to Vale. Have a sisters only week vacation?" Winter cajoles while putting the discarded boots, shin plates and mantle in a small rucksack

"I think I would like that." The girl responds quietly while pulling on a pair of ankle socks followed by dress leather shoes. 

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On Remnant there are clans or tribes of raiders, many claim to have been something more in the past and some go on to become something more. Such is the case with the Spartans according to their own traditions they are the last of the great naval powers of a lost empire that lived on the western shores of the Anima continent and ruled the narrow sea between that continent and Sanus. During the time of the Great War they had become pirates that prowled those waters. The clan that called themselves "The Chosen of Victory" backed Vale and Vacuo and became freelancers disrupting trade between Mantle and Mistral. If they had any other name will forever be lost to history as part of the Vytal treaty they were given license to wipe out or subsume all of the other seafaring raiders. Now in the present day the clan kept victory in their name and formed the one of the largest trading companies and merchant marine organizations on Remnant.

Only within the last few generations had they gained legal rights to operate in the kingdoms they had fought against in the war. So as Umber and Winter entered the private sky port the elder's airship had been docked at there was a surprising presence, and a less surprising response.

The Atlas soldiers were staying close to Winter's airship and the Mistral security teams were guarding the doors. Both groups were warily eyeing the trio standing proudly in the center of the dock. There in intimidating black armor and flanked by a pair dressed in red armor with blue highlights was the current president of the Victor Trading Company standing guard over a suitcase.

All three turned to look at the young women as they entered. Their helmets having lost the metal grill work of the previous century in favor of something more like a full face motorcycle helmet with gold mirrored polycarbonate face shields.

To anyone else the rumors of the president having used her bare hands to rip the head off a Beowulf and beat another to death with it would have given them reason to be wary. Umber's reaction was anything but. "Aunt Allison!" The girl squealed as she ran forward to give the woman a hug.

"I hope you don't mind Umber spending some time with her 'fun mom' before you take off." Winter turned to the doorway behind her and found Carnelian standing at the entrance in an ankle length dark red cheongsam dress with gold embroidery. "You asked for the use of a private sky dock attached to the arena. I would be remiss if I did not turn to my oldest friend for such a favor, and she would be unwilling to leave the safety of your ship to anyone else while in the care of her company."

"Fun mom?" Winter raised an eyebrow at the blond woman.

"Pyrrha would likely disagree with that assessment with how driven an instructor she can be." The Dust Weaver chuckled as she stepped up beside the young woman. "While I took the job of making sure her husband Alex didn't get himself killed on his adventures, Allison took responsibility for running the company and raising Zander, Pyrrha, and Umber, with help from the rest of the clan of course. Since Umber takes greatly after me she was spared a lot of the harsher weapons training drills Allison put her own son and daughter through."

When she turned her attention back to the quartet in the center of the hanger she found the three armored figures had removed their helmets. Pyrrha had definitely inherited most of her looks from her mother but the woman herself stands only slightly taller then Umber with a broader build. What was more surprising was the other two were a pair of twin redheads she judged to be only slightly younger women then Winter herself.

"Mrs Nikos I was unaware you had other daughters." Winter kept her tone light to emphasize it being a jest. 

"These kits? For them to be mine I would have had to have them when I was Umber's age." She laughed as she glanced to her left and right at the pair. "My company bought the last two years of their service contracts to Vale as an internship. Since it was an agreement between our families for them to come live with me here in Mistral to learn the Spartan combat style after they finished their training as huntresses my father would have called it fostering. Their older sister actually just finished training with me last year. Care to introduce yourselves 'daughters'?"

"I'm Jane Arc." The twin on the right waved and turned her cobalt blue eyes to her sister. 

"And I'm Jean Arc." The one on the left finished with a smile while running a hand through her hair causing a pair of fox ears to pop out. "Our mom is Aunt Carnelian's cousin actually."

Winter gave the older blond bedside her an inquisitive look, and she whispered in response. "It's a clan thing. Child rearing is considered a communal responsibility."

In a normal tone of voice she continues. "Girls I am sorry to have to cut this short but we are needing to see these two off. So it would be best to tell Umber the details of your request."

"Oh right. We actually had a huntsman's combat outfit we wanted to commission." Jane turns back to Umber. "It's for our brother back home in Vale as a present for making it into Beacon, but it's a rush job because we won't have his exact measurements until he gets fitted for his uniform to keep it a surprise. Your mom already helped us with the designs." She pauses to pull forward the suitcase. "We have all the materials needed for it in here. So we were hoping you wouldn't mind finishing the commission for us once you're in Vale." Umber gives and enthusiastic nod and the younger women start quietly discussing the particulars. 

"I have thought all this week about what I would say or do before the two of you leave." The older woman smiled gently at Winter. "I decided I will tell you that you have my heartfelt thanks for looking after Umber, treating her as your sister, and not holding the sins of the parent against the child."

"Could you clarify something for me then Carnelian?" Winter relaxed when the woman nodded. "What was it about my father that interested you? I know you are not the only woman my father had liaisons with, but other than vague rumors of something between you and Mrs. Nikos husband I haven't found any hint of you having other relationships."

"I see you have been reading the council's wonderful propaganda pieces about our lordly lion." Carnelian tittered while hiding her mouth with her hand. "Please tell me you read the novels and not the illustrated versions." Winter refused to be distracted and kept a level gaze on the woman until she sighed. "His wealth and influence held no interest for me, and while your father could be quite charming when he desired something, I was not a blushing girl to be fooled by that." 

"My family came from Vacuo originally, but have been working with the Nikos clan since before the Great War." The enchantress glanced over at the others. "Our only loss during the war was when a certain white haired and blue eyed young woman was able to hold off our attack by protecting a single ironclad frigate while the fleet of merchant ships it was in turn defending made a run for it. If I am not mistaken this was your Great Great Grandmother, it made for quite the propaganda coup so it isn't hard to find records even today saying she was a daughter of the prominent Gel'e family who controlled the Mantle Dust mine. Quite the shame they later disinherited her for marrying a common soldier she met during the war." 

"So yes I was well aware that even though Nicholas Schnee made the glyph semblance famous it did not originate with him." Carnelian smiled at the surprised expression on Winter's face. "I am telling you all of this so you will understand that my interest in your father was likely the same thing that motivated him to steal Umber away after I had a chance to train her. To see how your family's ability would mesh with my family's."

"It would seem neither of us got an exact answer to that question." Carnelian turns and smiles fondly at Umber. "I did get a beautiful little girl to love so I count it as a victory personally. Tell me Winter what do you think of Solstice Shade as a name?"

"It sounds lovely, but I am not sure why you ask?" The specialist's confusion at the sudden change in conversation was evident in her voice.

"I have quite a few cousins with families of their own as those two girls can attest. Not all of them are Faunus." The woman idly waved toward the twins who were walking with Allison and Umber towards the airship. "Given the communal nature of a spartan clan it is easy for me to find one of their daughters to foster or even adopt. Allison has already agreed to sponsor such a child to take an exam for a Mistrali Huntress License, but that would have to wait for another visit. So the question for you is how would you like to be Umber's sister legally in Mistral?"

"Is this repaying the favor you owe General Ironwood for taking custody of Umber away from my father?" Winter asked after a moment to process the value of having an alternate identity with more than forged documents backing it up.

"No child this is my way of saying thanks to you personally." Winter started to follow Umber up the boarding ramp to her ship, but almost stumbled when the woman finished answering her question. "Ironwood was easily convinced not to risk letting your father's rash actions potentially turn Atlas into a smoking crater."

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Umber had the cloth and dust available with the supplies she had brought from the academy, so by the time they landed at the airfield in Vytal two young women with golden brown hair set out for supplies. 

New kingdom, new continent, new city, new home, new school, but first and most important New Clothes! Priorities must be maintained after all. Winter seemed to already have quite the collection of jeans, blouses, and shoes that Umber would guess she didn't get a chance to wear often with her duties for the military. So most of the shopping came down to Umber picking out clothes for herself, which was a refreshing change even if Winter demanded older sister veto rights. 

It also brought to light a problem with her current combat attire. Umber's bodysuit and mantle lacked pockets for her scroll, pocketbook, or any other items she might need on an average day. With hunters, and hunters in training, wearing their combat attire in public in the Kingdom of Vale to help raise public morale this would be a problem. Winter also pointed out that the mantle was impractical, and really the only purpose was to be old fashioned enough to make the rest of the outfit seem more racy by comparison. Truthfully Umber could not argue as that had been one of her reasons. 

As a replacement Umber bought several short dark golden silk sleeveless dresses that buttoned up on the left side with access to large pockets in the front on the right. The sides were also split up to the waist to allow access to the hard point attachments on her bodysuit, the high collar also allowed her to discreetly sew in a space expanded bag to tuck her hair into. 

After she embroidered her silver curled fox profile into the front and back of the skirts, both facing to her right to match with how they displayed on her shields in her normal combat stance, she came to the uncomfortable realization that the circular patterns somewhat resembled snowflakes. Maybe even her subconscious was against her in trying to escape. 

She also purchased thigh high silk stockings in the same shade expecting to at least get a blush out of her more conservative sister, only to be complimented on her good taste instead. The combination with her dust laced hats would make for an exotic and tempting look, but still remain decently conservative. Finishing with wide golden leather belts to wear at mid thigh to keep the stockings from falling however did finally get the blush she had hoped for. 

Both the dresses' skirts and the thigh belts gained double rows of what looked like silver pearls around the edges, making them into bandoleers for her puppet spell ribbons. Her new school uniform would likely get the same treatment she decided. 

Winter and she then spent the next two weeks together, no real schedule, taking in the sights and traveling by commercial transport. The older of the two seemed to actively avoid taking any direct route to Vale, almost picking travel destinations at random for the first week. 

When they finally arrived in Vale Umber was actually just grateful to stop for a bit, but meeting with the final client on her first professional, albeit shared, commission, and getting the paperwork finished on the condo which had been upgraded to two bedrooms came first.

She was a bit surprised to find that Joan was a woman with flaxen blond hair and blue eyes. The huntress was definitely older than Winter, or Sol as she asked to be called on this trip, but it was both hard to tell exactly and impolite to ask. Not surprisingly it turned out that she was the twins half-sister. 

Where things got interesting is that Joan had teamed up with all of her sisters, and step-mother, to help their brother get to go to Beacon even over her mother and father's opposition to the plan. Which just meant that Joan asked Umber not to visit the family home until after her admittance to the huntsman academy even though it would be nice to meet the rest of her cousins.

This also meant Umber had to spend most of a week building up a wireframe over a tailoring mannequin to this boy Jaune's dimensions to be able to put together the long coat that her mother had helped design. She was actually fairly proud of the design with it being a white side buttoning drill blazer, so chest armor and pauldrons could be fitted over, extended out to the length of a duster jacket with slits on the sides and front to allow for ease of movement while the Dust laced cloth would provide leg protection. High polish golden buttons and golden embroidery accents would set it off the white even better. The several pairs of black slacks to fit nicely into the polished black leather knee high riding boots with golden studded accents, Joan had the boots made ahead but Umber would lace them with protective Dust spells, would complete the look nicely.

Umber spent so much of her time on the jacket she couldn't resist the urge to add a new spell she had developed into it. With how experienced Joan seemed to be with dust spells certainly her brother should be able to handle it.

With the project finished Umber happily presented her work to Joan, and the hook was set. The eldest Arc sister finally revealed that the outfit was to be a celebratory gift for her brother being admitted to Beacon and joining a team. Which necessitates that he actually pass the initiation, and Joan would be very grateful to Umber if she were to help with making sure that happened. 

Umber wanted to sigh but it was very much like what her Aunt Allison had asked her mother to do with her Uncle Alex when they both attended Haven. Unfortunately they had been friends before the academy and Umber did not even know Jaune.

Which all lead to the reason Umber had picked this particular airship to ride to Beacon. Chewing on her lip she tried to solve the dilemma of how to introduce herself to a fairly handsome young man without coming across as a creepy stalker, when she was in fact essentially stalking him. 

They say the clothes make the man. Umber could really see it here, maybe it was a family thing of being frugal, or he was just taking inspiration from his eldest sister. Where Joan had the style of wearing a bright white hooded sweater, ironed low rider jeans, and leather high heeled boots under her half plate, bracers, and greaves, looked like an understated action girl. Jaune with the faded black hoodie, worn in jeans, and sneakers just looked like a civilian high school student who strapped on armor and wandered onto the wrong flight. 

Not to say there is anything wrong with a good pair of worn in jeans, they just didn't give a great view. Which honestly had her somewhat annoyed. After having to rework the commissioned clothing set after he was measured for his academy uniform, Umber was fairly certain he had a fit dancer's physique under those dowdy clothes, and here she could hardly even see a hint of it!

She watched as the young man in question glanced out the window and hastily turned back. As he was steadily looking more and more green around the gills it suddenly became clear why Joan had been asking if Dust spells included ones that could mitigate nausea. 

'While the spell was developed for dealing with morning sickness,' She thought as she took a thin cylinder of a rolled ribbon out of her dress pocket, and willed it to spiral around her left forearm. 'Mom said it should achieve the same result for motion sickness.'

"Hey are you alright?" She asks as she steps up next to him, while discretely placing her left hand on his lower back and activating the spell. 

He turns to her and she smiles when he takes a deep breath before sighing in relief. "I think I am now." He glances down to the softly glowing ribbon on her arm. "Are you a healer?"

"I'm a Dust weaver so I know a few helpful tricks." Umber allowed with a grin. "True healing ability is beyond anything I can do." Stepping back she holds out her right hand. "I'm Umber Shade, might I hear your name good sir?"

"Jaune Ar...." Umber hurriedly grabs his offered hand with both of hers as the green quickly starts returning to his face. "Um Jaune Arc." The boy finished sheepishly once the danger abated.

"Like I said I'm not a true healer." Umber replied with a small sigh. "So the effect doesn't last very long."

"Think you might be willing to stick around and be my saving grace for the rest of the flight?" He asked with a light blush. 

Her response had to wait as with a ringing tone the holoscreens changed from a news report to showing a sharply dressed blond woman who introduced herself as Glynda Goodwitch and welcomed all the new applicants to Beacon. Looking out the windows it was possible to see the school itself rising above the cliffs with a waterfall falling down from it, forming into one of the rivers flowing through Vale.

"It doesn't seem like the flight will last much longer so it shouldn't be a problem." Smiling at Jaune, and playfully looking him over after she was certain she had his attention. "Plus the view over here isn't bad at all."

"Thanks, and it really is." Jaune says wistfully as he looks back out the window at Beacon.

'Oh. my. Dust! A boy can really still be this innocent at our age?' Umber lost her battle with giggling after realizing her innuendo had flown completely over his head. 

 

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He hadn't missed her insinuation, or her light laughter, but unless he just walked into the plot of one of the light novels his sisters seemed to enjoy so much there was no way a cute girl would just happen to walk up to him with the right spell to help with his motion sickness. However she wasn't doing anything other then helping him so unless he wanted to get sick and embarrass himself, aside from being a total ass, he couldn't exactly run off. 

As the large airship settled into the sky dock Jaune smiled at the girl and grew more certain he was stuck. While she did let go of his hand, Umber made no move to leave the ship with the others while he waited to recover his equilibrium. So he finally decided to point towards the door and walk with her off of the ship.

Walking out onto the sky port they came up to the crossroads of several paved paths leading from various airships just in time to see a little Gothic Lolita redhead loose her balance and crash into a trolley full of secure cases. 

"Eeeeep...?" Jaune was surprised to find that Umber had latched onto his wrist and was turned sideways trying very hard to hide behind him. "Could you maybe not move for just a minute." The girl whispered as she brought out her scroll to take in the scene without herself being seen, he wasn't sure if she had intended to hit record or not but she had. 

What followed was a girl in white shouting while shaking something around, it was hard to tell what from the growing cloud around the pair. Followed by an explosion, and more shouting. The only thing that carried over to them was a loud, "I'm sorry princess!" from the smaller girl.

A taller raven haired girl sashayed in while offering quiet words that at first seemed to please and then incense the so called princess, causing her to grab something from the girl's hand and flounce off in a huff. The taller girl had barely even actually paused to deliver the words and already seemed to be half way down her chosen path by the time little red had tried to turn and thank her. This just seemed to completely knock the stuffing out of the poor girl and she dejectedly flopped to the ground.

"I'm going to go check on her." Jaune quietly announced, but was pleased to see Umber nod her head in agreement.

The young knight came to the girl's side, his shadow breaking the harsh glare from the sun as he reached down caused the girl to open her eyes. "I'm Jaune"

"Ruby....." The girl took his hand with a small smile. 

"Weiss really should have also apologized to you, you tripped, but she created the Dust cloud that resulted in the explosion." Jaune glanced a her and she finally seemed to realize she hadn't offered her name in her rush to console the other girl. "And I'm Umber Shade....." She started to offer only to find the girl grabbing her hands and practically bouncing from renewed energy. 

"Eeeeeeeeee. You're the 'Shimmering Fox'? Youchangedyouroutfit.Itssomuchprettierthenbefore.CanIseeyourreallyawesomeshields? Pleasepleaseplease!?"

"Umm...that's one of the nicer nicknames I've been given yes." Umber blushed a little at the attention. "I'm afraid I didn't quite catch the rest."

"I might be experienced enough to translate." Jaune laughed. "She said your outfit is different, it looks much prettier, and asked if she could see your really awesome shields? Why the 'Shimmering Fox' though?"

"It sort of fits." Umber unclipped the chin strap and took off her conical hat, revealing her fox ears. "It is also more polite then a lot of things I have been called."

Jaune just nodded in understanding, and a hint of resignation, but Umber noticed Ruby getting a starry eyed look. "Little red, would you be comfortable if I kissed your cheek?" The girl blushes and shakes her head no. "What if I kissed you on the lips then?" The only response is an unintelligible squeak. "Having someone touch my ears feels more like the latter to me, so I hope you understand when I say I would rather you not ask to right now." Putting her hat back on Umber smiles at the eager nod of agreement. "So back to a safer topic, you wanted to see my babies right?"

"Please, I will show you my Crescent Rose." Jaune still wasn't sure what shields they were talking about and marveled a little when Umber reached both hands back behind her into her waist pouch. Jaune noticed something else about this pose and blushed while looking away. Her reference to babies not helping his mindset at all. Umber must have definitely noticed his reaction as with a grin she overemphasized the rolling of her shoulders as she brought out one and then the other of her targes. "These are my first born, they are actually electromechanical flails with shields, I call them Rumble Stilt." 

"They can be protective of me if naughty beasts get to close." Umber smiled at seeing Jaune's eyes widen when the flails spin into their full deadly forms. "Uninvited of course."

"How did you make them move like that?" The aspirant knight asks. "I didn't see your fingers twitch in the slightest."

"I control them through my semblance." Umber brings her right hand to her chest, allowing the blade to make a full rotation before disappearing again. "To anyone else they are just heavy shields"

"Is it possible for anyone else to learn to use them?" He shifted uncomfortably trying to keep his arm covering his left side. 

"External switches could be added I suppose," Now he was certain she just couldn't resist trying to get a reaction from him. "But they are dangerous enough I wouldn't let anyone use my babies without thorough hard training." She finishes with a smirk at his rising blush. 

"They don't have individual names?" Ruby asked while cautiously examining the deadly metal blade extending from the shield on Umber's left arm.

"Because they weigh around seven kilograms each for balance I always have to use them as a pair." Umber finished with a suggestive wink at Jaune. "And just you know...Twins!" This resulted in the young knight blushing red to his hairline. 

"Well this is my sweetheart." Ruby happily proclaimed as she pulled the over half meter long red enameled slab form of her weapon from behind her back, before casually lifting it to her shoulder where it extended out into its scythe form. "Crescent Rose is a scythe as well as a customizable high impact sniper rifle."

"It's also a gun." Umber helpfully translated for Jaune while she hung her own retracted weapons on her belt this time. 

"Care to play along Jaune?" Ruby asked hopefully. 

"Well," Taking his sheathed sword from his belt, he catches the sheath on his left forearm expanding it into a shield, and draws the sword. "I have these."

"Do they have names?" Ruby asks innocently. "What do they do?"

"Well my dad tells me it's called Crocea Mors," He totally missed Umber's eyes widening. "The shield can fold up so when I get tired of carrying it I can wear it on my belt. My great-great grandfather used it in the Great War."

"That wouldn't have been Julius Arc by any chance?" Umber asked him a little excitedly. 

"Uh yeah, you've heard of him?" Jaune replied feeling more than a bit nervous at the look in her eyes.

"Julius Arc," She points to the statue in the courtyard further down the paved path. "Called the Divine Commander?, said to be able to heal fatal wounds with just a touch of his hand. You're saying that is his sword, the one he is depicted holding aloft in that statue?"

"Please! please! let me study it!" She grabs his shield covered arm while staring hungrily at the blade. "There are tales that made it all the way to Mistral about how he could make that blade burn brighter than any torch, and cut through solid marble blocks. The shield by itself is one of the oldest examples of mechashift weapons coupled with space expanding spells."

"I think you're scaring him Umber." He was rescued as the smaller girl interposed herself between the two of them.

"I'm sorry..." Jaune did his best to smile in acceptance but he did honestly feel a bit nervous still. "I told Jaune earlier but I'm a Dust Weaver. It's a style of casting that is almost a lost art, so I can be a bit obsessed with anything related to historic arts and legends." She glanced shyly at him before sighing. "I am serious though, an heirloom like that is nothing to feel bad about wielding." 

"I think there is a welcome speech for all the new students we need to get to." Umber laughed shakily, seeking to break the silence that began to stretch out. 

Ruby cheered. "Let's go!" Trying to get the energy back up in the small group. 

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"Ah Miss Nikos a fine battle indeed." The white haired man congratulated smoothly after the championship trophy had been presented. "As a sponsor for the tournament I was most gratified to see all of these young warriors doing their best, but your skills are definitely exceptional." There was true humor in his eyes as he continued. "It makes me wonder if there is anything I might be able to do to convince you to be a spokesperson for my company."

"Could I ask for all the microphones to be turned off before I reply?" She put all the politeness into her voice that she could, and a sweet smile that would make others think she was talking with a close friend. "It would be a rather personal request." After receiving a nod from the man the grand marshal of the tournament signaled the reporters to turn off their equipment and she waited for the lights to go out on the cameras.

"Can you give me back my sister Mr. Schnee?" She continued in the sweetest voice. "Can you make the sadness and resentment I just saw in her eyes disappear? No I take that back, you are likely twisted enough to have a method I would rather not know the details of." Her smile was still bright enough to make the audience think she was asking for some prize or price. "How about this, I know nothing I would desire more than to never see you again. Especially since the last time we were in this close proximity you ordered your guards to point their rifles at me so Umber didn't dare resist."

"DeMacedon! Is this the respect you teach your children to show their elders?" The man bristled with anger as he turned to look over shoulder.

"Smile for the cameras Jacques, we're all friends here right." She felt a warm hand firmly grip her shoulder and looked up as her father stepped up beside her. His dark blond hair falling in loose waves to his shoulders that the top of her head barely reached, his casual smile and dancers build she inherited made her think of heroes out of novels, but his blue eyes were like chips of ice. "I honestly blame myself. I was the one that was foolish enough to believe it was safe to allow a pair of girls barely into their teens to go unarmed and unattended to a public venue that had been taken over for the night by an oily snake like you." Her father waved his free hand in the man's direction cementing with his smile for anyone out of earshot that he had just given a compliment. "The result was that one of the girls I helped raise and cared for was spirited away and the other was held hostage until she was able to slip away to let someone know what happened."

"I am afraid that the most my self recrimination would allow for was to talk my wife down from leading squads of Spartans to rip through your guards before you could leave last time so that she could rip off your arm and beat you with the wet end." Her father sighed dramatically and laid his hand on his heart playing further on offering a lamenting apology. "It was much better to make sure that cooler heads knew you had armed a bomb and sent it home."

"You really think you can continue operating without the resource my company provides." The man did a very poor job of keeping a smile on his face.

"Spartans have survived much worse. I believe we could manage without the benefit of your grace." Her father nodded towards the steps leading from the stage. "If you really want to risk a war over your inability to accept an honest reply to your question, who do you think would be better prepared? Your own security forces have done so incredibly well since we stopped hiring out our merchant marines to help protect your ships."

She had never been prouder to be her father's daughter as she walked off that stage with him that afternoon, but now to be a tree among the forest, just to go unnoticed for a short while. Such a simple thing you never learn to appreciate until it is something that is almost impossible for you to do. To reclaim that ability after losing it is a more empowering experience then all the cheers and accolades the world can possibly offer.

Such were her thoughts as she quietly stood observing the crowd of other aspiring hunters. The one she was really hoping to find had yet to appear. She had been waiting for years, a few more minutes would hardly prove lethal. Her distinctive circlet digging into her shoulder slightly where she had tucked it under her shield, she couldn't seem to change its colors, held more danger to her health.

Closing her eyes she reached out with her senses sampling the Auras of those around her, the skill had been honed in so many fights she could nearly use it as a weapon on its own. 

There, the light she was looking for finally brushed against her senses and began moving closer. 

A trio walked through the vaulted doors of the hall and she was happy to see the one she longed for carrying on an animated conversation with a younger girl, another red head she noted with a smirk, and a blond haired boy their own age whose familiar armor made her have to suppress a laugh. The cute little redhead, Ruby was her name apparently, was called away by an older, dead sexy, blond girl that had been waiting for her also it seems. 

"So mind sticking together a while longer?" The young man asked nervously.

"Sure Jaune, sorry if I spooked you earlier." The lovely golden creature put a hand on his shoulder, as they walked a bit further into the crowd.

"No it's cool. I know a few other girls that can be obsessive over weapons." Again she had to suppress a laugh at just who he might be referring to. 

"You!" The near shout came from someone she had hoped to never have the displeasure of encountering again. Little Ruby leaping into the arms of the blond girl with a squeal she couldn't quite make out just served to cement her first impression of adorableness.

The little white witch shoved a pamphlet in Ruby's face and very quickly rattled of what must have been corporate disclaimer. By Hera she had been forced to say far too many of them herself not to recognize one. 

With some encouragement from her blond sister?, Ruby tried to introduce herself. The catty response, which apparently included an allusion to the blond aspiring knight being scraggly, was inevitably capped off by a deadpan "No" when the girl innocently took the cold hearted princess at face value. 

"I think I might try to create some space between those two." Jaune who also noted how the small girl's shoulders slumped started stepping away from her target. "I am fairly certain I can shoulder snow angel's ire better than Ruby."

He almost made it over before all discussions were halted as the headmaster started giving his welcome speech. It was probably important but after hearing so many she could probably guess the context even listening with half an ear. 

"I really like the new look." She whispered as she sidled up against and wrapped her right arm around the waist of the shield maiden. "It suits you much better than what you wore the last time I saw you."

"Black hair, armor, and clothes?" Umber looked her over with a grin. "Not much one would associate with a renowned champion, but I guess that is the point."

"Champion?" She brought her left hand to her chest in mock offense. "I am a just a dark rogue out to steal the gilded maiden's innocence."

"Alas that was lost a long time ago to a fiery redhead back in Mistral." Umber laments with equal false drama, while wrapping her left arm around her shoulders in return. "Whatever shall you do now miss rogue?"

"I will have to think about that for a little while." She concedes with a smile. "In the meantime care to fill me in on the boy that by some miracle caught your attention?"

The headmaster's speech ended and Glynda, the woman whose hologram welcomed everyone on the airships, gave a brief announcement about the students spending the first night in the ballroom. Giving Umber a moment to gather her thoughts. "The motivation was he is the brother of a client that suggested they would greatly appreciate if he survived initiation to be able to use the Huntsman outfit that was ordered as a congratulatory gift." Umber sighs lightly. "Amazingly he is growing on me rapidly with how sweet and honest he is, not to mention fun to tease."

"I sense a challenge there then." The rogue in black smiled saucily as she pulled the smaller girl up against her and turned so her face was hidden from the group by Umber's hat. "Since the champion must be seen touring the school, before I disappear into the shadows once more I believe I will lay down the gauntlet for my potential rivals."

"Mmmmph?...."

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The blonde brawler glanced over to see her sister blush as bright as her cloak she was try to hide in, following her line of sight she quickly understood what the cause was. "Bow Chicka Wow! that new friend of yours works fast Rubes." Seeing the girl in the golden silk dress being held close to a dark stranger, and not fighting the kiss she was receiving, clearly had caused an overheat of the innocent girl's mind. The dreamy smile the friend was wearing when her feet touched the floor again argued that it was a good kiss indeed. Blinking the blond suddenly realized that the taller figure involved vanished completely into the crowds while she had been looking at the girl's face. 

"Humph, such an unseemly display in public." The white haired girl remonstrated before storming off with her back rigid.

"Don't knock it till you've tried it Weiss-cream!" 

"Yaaannnggg!" Ruby looks even more mortified somehow, which causes her sister to laugh. "That was.. that was?!.." The little reaper trailed off in an inarticulate loop. 

"Success!" Yang heard the golden haired girl cheer as she approached while laughing. "I discovered a way to create a Weiss free zone."

Seeing it as necessary she gave her sister a nudge. "Maybe you want to introduce me to your new friends?"

"Oh yeah, Jaune, Umber this is my sister Yang Xiao Long." Ruby shakes herself out of the thought loop she was stuck in. Pointing first at her sister and then over to the other blond. "Yang this is Jaune Arc," The boy shakes himself out of his yuri induced stupor, still blushing as he glances at the other girl, and offers his right hand in greeting to Yang. "And this is Umber Shade." 

After releasing Jaune's hand, Yang clasped the one Umber offered before stepping in close and addressing the girl quietly with a knowing smirk. "My Uncle cleaned my Dad out by betting against you in that last match. I like the changes you've made to your look in the last month plus though, more exotic enchantress then hedge witch."

"I hadn't fully prepared to deal with my opponent's abilities, I have a few things to try if a chance for a rematch comes up," Umber gives a nonchalant shrug before smiling slyly. "And thank you."

"Judging by what I just saw Uncle Qrow will have to pay back some Lien to my dad." Umber tilts her head curiously to the side at her statement. "My Dad bet you were into girls and weren't as aggressive because of it."

"While I am slightly offended at the implication, and would like to point out statements like that are a reason give a beating by themselves, I can't deny the first part is a fact even if it doesn't lead to the conclusion." Umber glances over at the other blond who couldn't decide if he should move away or not. "Dear Jaune makes me think it might be worth broadening my horizons however." Both girls laugh at the embarrassed squawk and furious blushing from the boy. 

"That's cool and all, but let me make one thing clear." She threw an arm around each of their shoulders and turned them so they are all facing away from Ruby. "If either of you try anything like that with my baby sister I will have to hurt you."

"No worries from me," Umber smiled already seeing eye to eye with her, literally and figuratively. "I would consider adulterating that level of adorableness a crime." Umber glances over to where the young gentleman was forced into a slightly uncomfortable crouch.

"Hey I have younger sisters too you know." Jaune gives both girls an affronted look. 

"Yang?" Ruby tapped on her back, with the way Jaune had started waving his arms she realized her sister was beginning to get concerned about her new friends' safety. 

She glanced back and winked at Ruby. "We're all good here it seems."

"There were several announcements before you all arrived." Releasing her hold Yang turns around to face her sister and the other two. "The big things were that we have the rest of the day before curfew at 9 pm to explore campus. Some second year students are available to lead organized tours, or just on our own. We can get dinner in the cafeteria starting at 5:30 pm, and ending at 8. Breakfast will be in the same time frame tomorrow morning. It's just about 2 pm now so."

"The question is do we want to team up to explore or go our own ways?" Jaune offers following her train of thought. 

"I'd like to stay together." Ruby gives the other teenagers a soulful glance. One, two, three nods and they all realize resistance is futile. 

"Where would you like to go first Rubes?" Yang concedes defeat for the group. 

"The armory and maintenance rooms!" Ruby cheers. "I need to make sure they have the equipment I need to work on my sweetheart."

"I think they are by the dorms." Umber pulls out her scroll, unlocking it and pulling up a map of campus. "We probably will need to ask permission, but if we say we need to repair some of our gear before the initiation tomorrow it shouldn't be a problem." Umber leered at Jaune. "Think you could offer your sword for inspection if they ask?"

"I'll make you a deal." Jaune ruefully shakes his head. "If you'll agree to tell us why you have gone out of your way to not be within ten meters of Weiss, I will let you examine Crocea Mors."

"Was I that obvious?" Receiving three emphatic nods Umber sighs. "Okay but only if we can do both privately in one of the maintenance rooms."

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It turned out that they could inspect and use one of the rooms without any trouble. Asking Professor Goodwitch politely saw to them having the scrolls authorized to access one in what they were told would be the first year dormitory they would all be assigned to after team selections were done. There was a bit of a walk across campus from the ballroom, but it still was not bad. The walk felt like a gallows march to Umber all the same. Opening the door she lead the way into the five meter by six meter room and remained staring only at the workbench and tools along the far wall until she heard the door close. 

Undoing the clasp and lowering her hat slowly in front of herself she turned to face the others. 

"Your expressions remind me of the one in the mirror the first time I saw myself like this." She chuckled sadly. "I was nine and in a moment of panic thought I had turned into a ghost." Reaching into the raised neck at the back of her dress she pulls on a drawstring. "The most painful part was my mother named me for my eye color, and as that was always darker then my skin color it was the first thing I lost." Her white hair slowly trails out over her left shoulder with the end falling into her open hand. "I know it is childish but I have never cut my hair since then. I should probably consider cutting it shorter and letting go, yet this is the last reminder I have of when my hair really looked like spun gold."

"I don't get along with Weiss, and probably never can, because I am living proof that her father isn't anywhere close to a paragon of virtue. Since she is the heiress, and I'm the bastard child as far as Atlas is concerned, she could make my life harder while I could do next to nothing in return." Umber was surprised as she rubbed her eye and found her finger came away wet. "I hadn't expected to run into her here at Beacon, that's why I panicked at the sky port. My only advantage is that we have only actually met once before, and she doesn't know I can change my appearance. If I can just not have her realize who I am until after the teams are formed, then I can face her on equal footing as students of the academy."

"I did not see that coming." Yang looked at the now pale pink skin of Umber's face in mild shock, before deliberately striding forward and lightly punching her in the shoulder. "But I'll have your back."

"So what happens after teams are formed?" Jaune walked past the girls and placed his sheathed sword on the workbench. 

"I'll become a resident here in Vale once my acceptance to the academy is made official." Umber sighed as she sat down on a stool next to the workbench. "At that point my legal name will become Umber Schnee everywhere except back where I was born in Mistral. With the contract of service in lieu of tuition I, my mother, and by some miracle my father, signed I should be safe from being dragged back to Atlas until after I complete both my training and mandatory service to Vale." 

"So assuming I don't get expelled, I can be assured that father can't try to marry me off to one of his subordinates until I am old enough to gain legal emancipation." Folding her hat up and tucking it into her waist pouch, she intertwined her fingers above her head in a sinuous stretch. Accompanied by a low moan she suggestively smiled at Jaune. "So if I have held up my end of the agreement to your satisfaction, may I examine your sword Mr. Arc?" 

Blushing while nodding his assent Jaune placed the weapon on the bench, but before she could turn around Ruby stepped up to Umber and leaned in close to whisper in her ear. "That was Pyrrha Nikos in the assembly hall wasn't it?"

Eyes widening in surprise Umber turned to whisper just as quietly in return. "It was but how could you tell?"

The younger girl nervously pressed her fingers together and blushed before leaning in close. "I recognized her boots. I thought I must have been mistaken until your appearance changed in front of us." Ruby crossed the first two fingers of her right hand while hiding them with her left. "Are you....you know?"

"Once upon a time we were. It's a bit up in the air, but I am hopeful." Her breath on Ruby's ear caused the girl to shiver. "Today was only the second time we have even been near each other in three years, the other was during the tournament."

Ruby fidgeted nervously before leaning in to whisper once more. "Why not be more you know..open about it?"

"I would not mind a bit of scandal if it only affected me personally, and maybe the Schnee family, but the Mistrali Champion is to valuable to people's morale to risk it." She gave Ruby a brief hug before finally turning to the artifacts she had longed to examine on the workbench.

Jaune cleared his throat catching their attention. "What did you mean when you said the shield used space expansion spells?"

In response Umber lifted the weapon off the table and slipped her left hand through the side handle. Pressing the button located just above the handle expanded it out into a shield. Umber stood up in order to retrieve a small ball ping hammer off the rack on the wall. Gently tapping the inside of the shield made the metal ring like a clear bell. "That sound means that this is formed together like a solid piece of metal, and yet as you just saw the plates just slid out from each other." 

Collapsing it back down she presents the sheath's profile to the group. "You just saw them slide back together but can you point to any gaps here where that should be possible? It still weighs the same but the extra metal plates just disappear into a pocket space where the sword still is right now." Carefully taking the sword from the sheath, and placing it on the table, she turns it so the others can look inside before expanding the shield out again. "It is one of my favorite techniques to create expanded spaces in clothing and cloth pouches, but crafting the same into forged metal is the work of a master. I am not sure anyone alive today could reproduce work this intricate."

Collapsing the sheath a final time, she placed it on the bench before picking up the sword. Running her free hand over the blade as she continues. "The spell is so familiar to me it's almost like I can taste it when I run my senses over......" Umber's blue eyes widen as she put the sword back down on the bench and ran both her hands over it multiple times. "The same spell is everywhere on this sword, even the handle? That makes no sense though, there isn't any shifting parts." 

Her hand stopped over what looks like a recessed brad securing the golden cross guard to the handle. With a soft grinding of gears that had not been oiled in a long time the light blue band securing the leather wrapping of the handle expanded outward with connecting plates looking like the iris of a camera linking it to the handle. Once it became wider then the blade itself the whole handle popped back from the cross guard a short distance with the sound of a released spring. Umber hastily pulled out her scroll and started taking pictures of the revealed metal funnel shaped like the top of an hourglass aimed towards the cross guard between two metal rails that were apparently the split tang of the blade. A sheen of ordinary dust covered everything inside. 

Umber carefully placed the handle of the hammer she used earlier under the cross guard to support the weight of the blade before gently pulling the handle further back along the rails revealing they ran the full length of the handle. A metal plunger attached to a spring retracted out of the funnel allowing it to drop out. Looking at both ends of the funnel revealed the toothed gears that caused the irising action from before. "Have you ever seen any other items like this in your family mementos Jaune?" He could only shake his head negatively as she took a closeup photo and quickly sent a message to someone. "The torque required to make the cylinder spin must have sheared off whatever was on the outside of the cross guard to actuate it at some point."

Umber carefully rubbed a white residue off the end of the plunger with her finger, she sniffs it before tasting it. "It's table salt?" 

Further down the rails there are a quartet of holders for Dust crystals, that are empty, arranged around a tube that contained the shaft the plunger attached to. At the end of the tube is another crystal holder. No trace of the original crystals remained. Umber was running her thumb along one of the rails when she suddenly smiled brightly. "Could someone hand me a piece of paper and a pencil?"

Ruby quickly fished the items from her pouch and handed them to the older girl. Umber blew away some of the dust along the outside of the rail before putting the paper up against it and lightly rubbing the pencil across it. Gently placing the sword back on the table she held the paper up to the light. "Do not exceed four Grade Four Electric Blue and one Grade Five Wind Green Dust Crystals....... That officially dashes my hopes of this being an ancient holy sword, but now I do think I know what we are looking at."

"Would you mind if I sent this information to someone I think has the expertise to help with this?" Umber took pictures of the paper, the funnel, the blade with crystal holder array, and the handle. 

"Can you tell us what you think it is first?" Jaune replied mildly.

"I think we are looking at a Great War era plasma blade!" Umber enthused while practically bouncing. Ruby lets out a squeal and is quickly hovering over the disassembled weapon.

"Not to be a downer when you're both being so entertainingly enthusiastic." Yang opined from the side with her arms crossed. "But how can you be so certain of this Umber?"

In response Umber reached into her waist pouch, pulling out a silver cylinder that she is barely able to get her hand around and almost twice as long as her palm is wide. "This is one of my thrusters, I'll try to explain how they work the way my friend explained them to me." A ring on one end surrounding a fan blade started to spin. Removing the ring she placed the cylinder on the table next to the blade of Crocea Mors. Lifting away half of the external shroud revealed two bright blue dust crystals arranged on the outside of an inner cylinder. "These spin the fan and create a voltage high enough to cause the tips of copper wire electrodes to sublimate into a reaction chamber filled with pressurized air from the fan." 

Lifting away the inner cylinder reveals another hour glass shaped tube with a small sphere at the center of the neck. The upper half connecting by a pair of struts to the bottom half of the inner liner. A small copper wire pierced the sphere on each side. A coil of wire spirals around the lower half of the hourglass. "After that the mix becomes conductive enough for the power from the crystals to turn it into high energy plasma which the coil pulls out using a magnetic field. The plasma then superheats the rest of the air blown in by the fan and that shoots out the far side creating forward thrust."

Umber points at the blade again. "I think this might use salt for the same purpose which would create a bright yellow glow to the resulting plasma, where the copper in mine creates a green glow because of the cooling of the plasma."

"Where is the reaction chamber?" Ruby looks over the blade quickly noting the difference. "How could the plasma? not melt the blade?" 

"The reaction chamber is in the cross guard." Umber looks over the tools before finding a compressed air canister. She turned the blade on edge and laid the piece of paper over the blade. Putting the tip of the straw coming off the canister at the opening in the cross guard the funnel came out of she grins. "Now watch this." 

Pulling the trigger on the canister caused a loud hiss and the paper was blown up and away from the blade. "That's So Cool!" The little reaper gushed. 

Umber glances over at Jaune while she turns the compressed air to its normal purpose of clearing the dust from the rest of the array. "So can I contact my friend now?"

"Wait what just happened?" Yang looked over at Ruby trying to figure out what she was cheering about.

"The air just passed through the blade itself!" Ruby looked the blade over as though trying to find anywhere the openings could be. 

"If you think they can help sure." Looking things over with a still slightly confused expression, Jaune gave her a hopeful grin. "So are you able to make it work you think?"

"I have spare Electric Blue Dust Crystals for my thrusters, but I don't have any Wind Green of the right size." Umber nervously bit her lip. "Let me try contacting someone I know in Vale." 

After composing several messages on her scroll Umber reassembled her thruster and returned it to her waist pouch. Almost immediately after she pulled a small secure case from the pouch. As she opened it Jaune noticed it contained a set of eight glowing blue crystals and multiple small spools of copper wire. "Maintenance kit for the thrusters." She stated simply to his questioning look. 

"Aren't those really expensive?" He looks at her in mild shock, before shuffling around nervously. "I don't really have any way to pay you back."

"It's one of the few benefits I have from who my father is." Umber mumbled in response. "Any Dust I could show I had a use for Atlas academy would provide me, and he would replace their stock. After all a Dust Weaver without supplies can't maintain or improve their skills, all to bring fame to the family name of course."

"If I can put that to good use for a friend I'll count it as worthwhile." She claps him on the shoulder with a big smile.

Umber, with the eager assistance of Ruby, spent the next twenty minutes carefully securing the blue Dust crystals into the four holders within the tang of Crocea Mors. Moments before they could finish the last one an impressively firm knock comes from the door.

"Yo! Is Umber Shade in there?" A deep but feminine voice calls from the outside.

Jaune answered the door to find himself looking down just slightly over a pair of sunglasses into the deep brown eyes of a young woman wearing the Beacon student uniform accented with quite a few necklaces and a beret over her multihued brown hair. "Well handsome you're not exactly who I was sent to make a delivery for, but I can't complain about the view." She slides her sunglasses down a little further with her right hand as her grin grows wider

As he stepped back with a blush Umber with her hair again turned golden walked up to greet their visitor. "I'm Umber."

"Coco Adel." She hands Umber a business card, and then offers her hand in greeting. "My family run the Adel Fashion Haus and I was hoping to run into you." 

"Prof Ozpin asked me to fetch this from the storage for you." Coco shifts a duffle bag strap off her shoulder and hands it to Umber. "I'm guessing you were expecting it. That's a beautiful dress, did you make it yourself?"

"I just did the embroidery work." Umber admits with a small smile. "I can follow a pattern to makes clothes, but my training with my mother was interrupted before I could learn much about design."

"So I heard through the rumor mill, bad business that." The older teen puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I know design pretty well so once you get settled into classes feel free to look me up, and I would be happy to make time to tutor you." Leaning in a bit closer she smiled conspiratorially. "I'll be honest with you I'm crap at sewing, but I hear you're faster at hand sewing then most people are with a machine. If you would work with me on making some of my designs into outfits I'll split the commission fee with you equally."

"Thank you Coco, I really appreciate you taking an interest in me. If we can meet up after the teams are made I would love to show off my first commissioned piece I finished from one of my mother's designs." Umber glanced towards him and gave her a wink. "I might even be able to get someone to model wearing it." 

Coco's chortle echoes down the hall as she waves to the others in the room and takes her leave. Closing the door and turning to face the others they can see she is positively beaming. "It isn't every day someone affiliated with the biggest fashion company in a kingdom goes out of their way to track you down, offers to teach you and team up with you on projects." Umber explained as she sets the duffle on the workbench. 

"I can see how that would pick up your mood significantly." Yang admitted with a warm smile. "So whatcha get?"

Ruby watched as Umber pulls a silver metal case with a familiar snowflake design out of the bag, moments later with a screech the stool she was sitting on slid as far across the room as it could go away from said case with her still sitting on it. "I promise I won't be foolish enough to shake a bottle with a loose lid in front of someone else's nose Ruby."

"That's what happened earlier!?" Yang nearly shouted the question. 

"Feel free to watch the replay while we finish up." Umber hands her scroll to Yang with the video open while gently trying to coax Ruby back to show off what treasures the case had to offer.

 

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Jaune glanced over the two girls to find a healthy assortment of crystals and powdered dust packed in foam inside. Umber grabbed out four blue crystals to refill her kit, and a slightly larger green crystal to complete the array in Crocea Mors. While the girls finished that Jaune checked the bag again and discovered a box of non-iodized salt. "Looks like we have everything we need now then."

"That self serving git!" Jaune glanced up to see Yang's eyes turn a bright red. "How dare she blame Ruby for causing that!"

"Punching her won't help, nor will breaking my scroll." Umber said mildly while carefully extracting the device from the other girl's hands. "I have thought of a good use for the video though. Weiss and I have an older sister who is an officer in the Atlas military. If you'll give me a moment to set up the message we can give Ruby the honor of sending the video on its way to her."

The two sisters gave her equally malevolent grins in response. Jaune couldn't help but shudder slightly at the evil chuckling coming from Ruby and Yang as the younger girl hit the send button on the message Umber had composed. "So how much is left to finish and how can I help?" He asked hoping to move things back to safer topics.

"Well I think we are ready to add the salt and close the patient back up doctor." Umber slid the sword back into its sheath before presenting it to him blade down with a grin.

After opening the spout on salt container, he put the funnel back in place and and carefully filled it nearly to the top. Finishing with sliding the handle back down, sealing the funnel with the plunger, and holding it down to compress the spring while Umber held her hand up to the guard causing the expanded wrapping to iris closed once more sealing the expanded space away.

"If you want I can put a protection charm on it for good luck." Umber gave Jaune a genuine smile, which only made him more worried.

"What kind of charm." His suspicion was rising by the moment.

"Just a small token to have a guardian spirit watching over your shoulder." Umber replied with a wink.

Jaune was all but ready to bolt at those words but, hoping against hope, handed the weapon back. He watched with trepidation as the girl took a bottle of what looked like blue fingernail polish out of her pouch. 'Oh Oum no!' The aspiring knight thought as he watched a single drop fall on the back of the sheath. Where it flowed and nearly instantly dried into an eerily familiar crossed squares surrounded inside and out by a circle. 'Damn it all Iris what did you set up this time.'

"Thanks Umber." Jaune felt the strain in holding his smile as he took Crocea Mors back. "I think every little bit helps."

The the other two girls took this as a cue that there was no harm in the token, which was technically true, and while Umber was placing the charm on their weapons he dug out his wallet and pulled out his kingdom ID card. A quick glance at the back confirmed the charm painted on it was nearly identical in form, except this one had actual brush strokes. "Hey can we break this off here, I need to head to the library and check on something." Jaune announced as he put his wallet back into his pants pocket.

"You don't want to test it out?" Umber and Ruby both asked nearly on top of each other.

"I'm sure." Not wanting to let them see the frustration showing on his face, he opened the door and walked out. Leaving the girls to pack up and follow after.

He knew he had put his foot in it now, the trap was sprung. Like a bear with his leg caught it was only a question of how much he wanted to scrape himself up in a futile attempt to escape. It wasn't like she meant harm or was being dishonest. Having her be able to track you was sort of like having a guardian watching over you. It was just the principle of the thing. Sadly from experience he could say trying to scrape the thing off now would only alert her to the act, and make her more sneaky about it in the future.

After leaving the dorm Jaune practically ran to the library. A quick request of the librarian on duty had him set up at a terminal in a secluded corner. He wasn't worried about losing track of the girls. Short of pitching Crocea Mors in a locker and running there wasn't anywhere on campus he could go at the moment that Umber could not find him. "Arc residence!" The terminal suddenly showed the heart shaped face of a preteen girl with her dark red hair held back by a hairband accompanying the over excited voice. Her dark blue eyes widened. "Did you get lonely already onii-chan?"

"Maybe a little Jun." Jaune replied with a small smile. "Is Iris around?"

"Yup, let me get her." The girl's face disappeared from the screen and Jaune was reminded why he would forever regret buying her those comics she liked whenever the family went camping in Shion. "Okaa-sama! Onii-chan wants to talk to you." Yes every time after they came back he swore he would never again let his baby sister sweet talk him, or give in to those pleading eyes, and every time he folded.

He realized he was drumming his fingers on the counter and clasped his hands tightly together to keep himself from causing a distraction as the wait seemed to drag on. Finally an auburn haired woman with an almost literal foxlike grin appeared on the screen. "Good afternoon Jaune, you almost beat Jean's record for being the fastest to call home. Though you did beat out Jane because she didn't want to be on the same call I think."

"Mom is there anything you might have forgot to mention before I left on the airship this morning?" He sighed as he steepled his hands together and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Like maybe I would be running into one of your relatives?"

"I can honestly say I have no idea what you're talking about Jaune." Her tone of voice matched the confused look on her face, but the young man wasn't nearly convinced.

"These might look a bit familiar." Taking his identification card out of his wallet he presented the back of his sheath and the back of the card to the screen. "I encountered a blond fox girl who is a dust weaver and even uses the same partial truth explanation you've given since I was a kid for these."

"So you found where that one was hidden." Rolling her violet eyes at his unamused expression she was about to say something else when a voice to her side started asking their own question. 

"Okaa-sama if Onii-chan is the prince in the story does that make Umber the merchant's daughter or the enchantress?" He could easily guess which story as Jun was holding the comic as she pushed back into the camera's view. The blond haired man brandishing a sword defending a red haired woman on the cover was easy to recognize, it was one he had bought for her.

"Who is whom now?" Their mother asked mildly.

"Um..." Jaune could almost swear she teleported as quickly as the girl was gone from the screen and he could hear small feet pounding up the stairs. A faint call of, "Never mind." Seemed to float down from what he assumed was the second floor bedrooms.

"Umber is my cousin Carnelian's daughter and I hadn't heard she was in Vale." Iris sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. "I can't say who exactly put anyone up to anything, but if it was me the arrangement would be very different." 

He just stared at her for a moment before snorting with laughter. "I can't begin to guess if you put Jun up to that, if it was one of the others, or if she was actually just that excited about me being in the middle of something like that story." Jaune massaged his temples before continuing. "There isn't a question that the majority opinion would be hoping I would continue to play along."

"I don't know how much you have heard so far, but if she is reaching out to you as a friend." Iris put a hand toward the screen imploring the boy to listen. "Jaune as a favor to me please just give her a chance."

"I heard about some family issues related to her father." He conceded with a sigh. "Alright I won't give her a hard time since you arranged to make sure dad and mama Lily were out on a mission so they couldn't try to stop me from going. I better get back to her and the others. Before I do though can I make a guess that your preferred first meeting would have been one that entailed engagement discussions? One of those marriage meetings like they have in Mistral?"

"Oh no Jaune." It was Iris' turn to hold back laughter. "The Mysterious Fox can only blame himself for that ship having already sailed." 

As the the screen went black he flopped back in the chair, grumbling about a stupid hero name he really only remembered because his sisters never let him forget it.

When he walked back towards the front of the library he found much as he expected the girls had followed him and looked to be playing a game at one of the tables closer to the librarian's desk. "Hey Jaune," The little reaper hopped up and called to him with a wave, earning a glare and hissing shush from the librarian on duty. As the boy approached she continued more quietly. "Umber was teaching us how to play Star Halma, are you familiar with it?"

He glanced over her shoulder to see a six sided playing board with groups of ten peg playing pieces matching the distinct colors of the six points of the "star". "My dad used to insist on playing Halma with me, but stopped after a while. I'm not familiar with this one though."

"This version was developed in Atlas." Umber pointed at the layout of the playing field. "They added two more camps, but cut down the number of directions the pieces can move from eight to just six. The basic rules are otherwise the same. My older sister loves to play this."

'If I can put up with Jillian and Jun all the time, and Jane and Jean more often then I would like, dealing with just one trickster should be a breeze. At least I have an idea what I am in for now.' Glancing at Umber as he sat down at the table Jaune noticed she had switched out her hat for a golden hairband making the resemblance to his kid sisters even more striking. "All right do we play with individual camps or do we share camps?"

Umber turned to the other girls. "What he means is since there are four players we can only have four of the colored 'camps' in play, or we can play where two players have to work together to play one of the extra camps while still only winning with their own camp after the 'team' camp has won. Either way we can play until one person has won two games or best-of-five."

In the end they settled on playing individual camps which he could see frustrated the girl somewhat. Umber used her greater experience to barely win the first game, but from what he could tell she had really been more interested in studying the other players.

The sisters naturally banded together in their play from the start, and the result was that Ruby was the one to win the second game, which Umber happily congratulated her for. The third and fourth games though were an absolute annihilation of opposition. He casually put together ladders that took his pieces from the starting point, jumping completely around the board, and finally into his home camp in a single turn.

"You're evil Jaune." The little reaper whined into the table with her arms crossed over her head. "Pure Evil!"

"Sorry." He did feel a bit bad, but he looked at Umber pointedly. "There is a rule when I play games with my kid sisters that everyone plays to win and get better. Since there are the three of you here I kind of fell into the old habit." He reached over and patted one of Ruby's hands. "We also have a rule that we only play for blood while we're playing, so I hope you all will forgive me."

"Play for blood ehh?" Yang hopped up, knocking her chair over, and pointed dramatically at him. "We'll have to play 'Remnant the game' in the future, and then we will see how much your blood waters the sands of the deserts of Vacuo!" The blonde brawler put her fists on her hips and cackled madly, accompanied by cheering from Ruby.

"Ahem!" The group all turned to see the rather annoyed looking librarian standing behind Yang, and decided rather quickly to pack up and finish touring the campus before grabbing something to eat and staking out a place to camp in the ballroom for the night.

 

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The young weaver politely declined to join Yang and Ruby in their improvised camp on the side of the ballroom that had been unofficially designated for girls. After storing her weapons and dust supplies in a locker, and changing into her sleepwear, she set up against a wall near to the entrance of the ballroom with some fabric and thread to work on finishing a piece of new gear. At the same time indulging in one of her favorite pastimes of people watching. Fortunately or unfortunately all that seemed to be on offer were the boys on the far side of the room posing like well muscled peacocks.

She wasn't very surprised when a tall redhead in comfy looking red and brown flannel pajamas sat down next to her. "I see your toes still get cold faster than the rest of you." Umber glanced at her ankle sock covered feet on her otherwise bare legs below the long t-shirt she was wearing before she shrugged in response. "Is that a backpack you're working on?"

"I discovered that if a good close combat fighter pressures me I don't have the time to reach into my pouch and grab any of my dust rockets, so I am making a space expanded pack to store a spring loaded magazine for them as well as my thrusters." Umber responded with false mildness while watching the needles and thread form more stitches.

"When I watched the video of your fight with Sage I was sure you dropped something from your right hand right before you two clashed." The other girl leaned in and whispered. "If it was a rocket why didn't it fire off?"

"He was convinced I was a close range fighter. Which you, Pyrrha, should know very well I'm not." Umber smirked at the other girl. "At such short range igniting the propellant would have just made it obvious for him to see and possibly dodge. Just using my semblance and some double sided tape to make it stick to the inside of his duster was far more effective. Surprising him by making myself light enough to be knocked into the air ensured that he wouldn't look down to see it."

"Why didn't you use dust spells against Reese?"

Umber shrugged again. "The chance to target her never came up before she presented such a glaringly easy way to take her down by out flying her."

"Then what was the reason you started with hand to hand combat against me instead of creating space by flying up and carpet bombing with dust spells?" The champion asked quietly.

"Maybe I wanted to show someone that always acted like they needed to be a shield for me that I could actually stand up myself." The blond girl smiled at her friend, deciding to stick with a partial truth and not the family politics laced one. "I didn't win but I was the only competitor to take the repeat winners Aura down to the halfway mark."

Pyrrha smiled while relaxing back against the wall and looking over the room before she suddenly started giggling. "On an unrelated topic do you think there is any explanation for that."

She followed her friend's gaze and suddenly felt a headache coming on. Blinking several times did not make the affront to any form of adult style disappear. Thinking on it for a few moments when she realized it was not going away she came to the conclusion that it was diabolical in how well it accomplished its intended function.

"Pure speculation at the moment, but if I had a brother that was sweet, caring, entirely too trusting, and that I was really not ready to share with any girl his own age." Umber paused a moment to decide how best to phrase the rest. "I would assure him that wearing pajamas that were comfortable, hid any hint of an athletic physique, and styled appropriately for a seven year old, were the perfect thing to wear at all times to sleep in. I would likely go as far as to make him several with his favorite cereal mascot embroidered on the front to help ensure he would wear them." Pyrrha was hugging her legs with her head resting against her knees trying to stifle her giggles. "On that note, I think I overplayed my hand with him earlier."

"Oh! Hehe...ha heee." I took several more moments and deep breaths for the other girl to continue. "Hee ha hha...h.. how Sssso?"

"I put a basic casting circle on the back of his sword sheath with some electric Dust laced enamel, and, he recognized it." Umber sighed and leaned back against the wall. "He didn't make any accusations or warn the other two you saw me with earlier, but he bolted straight to the library where I am fairly certain he made a CCT video call. After that he was friendly again, but started dropping a lot of references to how he was reminded of hanging out with his sisters."

Pyrrha just glanced over to her with a slightly confused look on her face.

"I guess I forgot to mention before that the clients who asked me to look after their little brother all happen to call one of my mom's cousin's mom. Though not all are hers by birth."

"The father has two or more wives?" The redhead nodded in understanding. "Must be a fairly influential family to keep that old tradition in modern Vale"

"So I have to believe that someone at home asked him to play nice even though he knows I wasn't just purely interested in him when we first met." Umber sighed and watched a few more stitches form themselves around a difficult corner seam on the pack she was working on. "Which leaves me with a troublesome situation of do I keep dogging his heels and risk alienating him more, or do I let him go on his own and risk letting him get hurt."

"You may have to just let the chips fall as they may." Pyrrha said quietly. "Were you thinking of taking it as far as becoming his partner and teammate?"

"I really wasn't planning to go that far, but I wouldn't mind at this point. From what I can tell he may not be a front line fighter, but his grasp of strategy and tactics is almost scary. His Aura levels from what I could sense are nothing to sneeze at, he is almost on par with Uncle Alex from what I can recall." Umber smiled a little sadly at the memory. "I don't think it would be a good idea for us to be partners either, being from another country and sticking together would only work against us in the long run."

A commotion farther into the room caught the girl's attention, followed by an even louder call for the familiar pair of girls to cut it out so others could sleep. The resulting shouting match caused more of a disturbance then the sibling tussle that preceded it.

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Jaune was doing his best to clear the area of the girls shouting match. Experience had taught him that trying to play peacemaker would only add fuel to the fire. Double checking his gear in his locker before sleep was sounding like an exceptional idea. Hearing a muffled laugh he glanced at the far wall and almost tripped as for a moment he could have sworn he saw two of his younger sisters. A second glance revealed it was Umber chatting happily with a red haired girl just enough taller than her sitting to make the mistaken impression. 

Nodding his head he relaxed and started walking again before an even worse realization hit him, he increased his pace to get to the locker room and his Scroll that everyone had been ordered not to bring with them into the ballroom for the night.

Getting to his locker he quickly punched in the access code and grabbed his Scroll out of his pants pocket, his folded clothes falling to the floor in his haste. Quickly he started searching through his photo album on the device when a message chimed. A circular icon with multilayered petals of a golden larkspur flower under a single golden crescent appeared with the text “looking for this?” A window popped up with a picture of a six year old version of himself with a goofy mask being pulled up off his face, he was supposed to have insisted it was a fox with its ears laid back. The result was that the ears were long enough for it to be mistaken for Pumpkin Pete. Surrounded on both sides and blushing as two girls kissed him on the cheek. A picture that the sender loved to tease him with always claiming that it reminded her of just how brave and crafty her little brother could be. The redhead on his left always made him think of his sister Jillian but the blond on his right was too young to be his older sister Jen and Jana was only a toddler at the time.

“How do you do that Joan?” He typed in reply wishing he could emote the groan that escaped his mouth.

“I have my ways, but mostly I just heard that Mama Iris couldn't help but bring up ‘The Mysterious Fox’ so I was guessing you would connect the dots.” He could almost visualize the grin she had to be wearing as she typed that.

“She also mentioned a marriage meeting involving at least one of them, and I am fairly certain both of them are here. So please be straight with me on how screwed I am.” His hands were shaking as he hit send.

“I will tell you truthfully there is no obligation you are under except the non-optional mission for me.” Jaune cringed slightly remembering the promises he made for her and Iris's help getting into Beacon. “I realize you were six at the time so I will explain the situation. Two families meet up. One has one son and six daughters at the time. The other also has one son and two daughters. Numerically what do you think the main topic of conversation was?”

“I would guess the second family was considering trying to arrange a bride for their son?” He offered gaining a little bit of hope in the process.

“Yes another cute little boy took your place getting all the younger girls' attention for a few days while the parents talked. Fortunately they correctly assumed since I was about to start at Beacon I would not have an interest in considering any future arrangements with a boy who wouldn't even enter combat school for a few years.” Jaune chuckled a little at her tone. “So I was given the task of babysitting you and the two precocious girls. As far as I know the only thing that was settled on was that any of the children in our family were invited to spend a few years living in Mistral to train in their family combat style, which I already availed myself of, and they asked us to look out for their daughters who they hoped would study at Beacon since the mothers were originally from Vale. Their little boy grew up to be a promising huntsman in training, but inherited his mom's short temper. I have high hopes my brave little brother will do the same, hopefully without the temper part. So I trust you read the mission homework I gave you?”

“The book on POW camp survivors and PTSD from the Great War?” Jaune settled to the floor and leaned against the open locker, couldn't she settle on a mood?

“Yes, now here is the first test of this mission. With the information you have gathered today why did I ask you to read that book?”

The most obvious clue was if she and his sisters had been the ones to ask Umber to get in contact with him it had to involve her. She was born in Mistral but talked about being in Atlas and not being in enough contact to know that her half sister would be here. Her constantly teasing him like a kid with a new toy, she obviously enjoyed making him blush, but it was more like she felt it was safe to do so, maybe for the first time in a long time. Finally he sighed when he put the pieces together. “I think you are using me like a therapy dog. If I understand the hints Umber was not in Atlas by her own choice and wasn't allowed to leave either. So you asked her to stick close and look after me so that I could look after her.”

“A golden star for the observation.” Jaune slumped at the lack of denial. “I would put it more as I expect you to try to be a friend that she can lean on that she has no lingering resentment towards, and maybe a little fondness for if she remembers your first meeting at all. You can't deny you could use all the friends you can get and looking after you could possibly keep her from self destructing by testing how far her newfound freedom goes.”

“So any other surprises I should be watching out for?” He set about gathering his scattered clothing and putting it back in the locker for the night. 

“That should be all that I have for you. Sleep well and stay safe, I look forward to hearing from you after you get assigned a team.” He smiled as he sent a good night wish in return and started putting his Scroll back in his pants. As he picked up his breastplate he noticed the padding had pulled up on one side and a bit of blue enamel was showing against the white. Unhooking the padding entirely revealed not one, or two, but seven large and thickly enameled seals like Umber's that had been put there. With a groan he reseated the padding and put the breastplate back in the locker and closed the door.

Walking back to the ballroom from the locker room revealed that the argument had ended and most of the other prospective students had already curled up in their sleeping bags. Glancing over where he had seen the two girls before he rushed from the room he found a pair of sleeping bags that had been turned so the openings faced each other. In one he could see the back of a red haired head and in the other he saw Umber's hat covering her head and face. He could see between them the red haired girl reaching over into the other sleeping bag and a peak of her hand gently holding a hand with pale pink skin.

As he walked over and climbed into his own sleeping bag a few more things clicked into place. From the time they arrived Umber had quite literally not approached anyone that wasn't staff that he hadn't approached first. The only exceptions being Coco who he assumed she knew by reputation, the black haired girl who kissed her in the assembly hall, and this girl who she was now sleeping next to. Thanks to the demonstration of Umber's color changing illusions, which it was apparent she couldn't maintain in her sleep. It was simple elimination to assume that the girl with black hair and the one with red that she seemed so comfortable with now were one in the same. Which given their first meeting he came to the conclusion their relationship was something a bit more than sisterly.

 

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".ey sl..py ..ed" He tried rolling over and burying his head into the pillow but the voice came back again accompanied by a pair of hands gently pulling his shoulder. "Wake up, it's time for breakfast."

"Just five more minutes Jilli food can wait that long can't it?" He tried sleepily arguing with his tormenter while rolling free of her grasp.

"Jaune who's Jilli?" The question woke him up enough to open his eyes as he realized he was not in fact in his warm bed at home.

"My sister Jillian who only likes to think she is older and more responsible then me." The blonde girl kneeling next to him was definitely not who he first thought of either. The hair pooling behind her on the floor was longer than any of his sisters wore theirs, even if the hairband she was wearing reminded him of his baby sister still. "You remind me of her a little, and on that note I feel I should tell you to be more cautious. I can see something I probably shouldn't from this angle."

"Well big brother Jaune." The girl grinned impishly at him while leaning forward to whisper in his ear, incidentally pushing her knees further apart. "You can't see something I'm not wearing in the first place." Composure breaking the girl started giggling at his blushing and sputtering. "I'm wearing a bodysuit under this shirt, so what you are seeing is an armor plate, but if my opponent in a spar spends time thinking about what they are or aren't seeing it's to my advantage."

"Why me?" Jaune groaned as he rolled out of his sleeping bag, for good or ill his heart rate was now far too high to fall back asleep. "Seriously why wait on me? It looked like you were getting along well with the girl you were talking to last night, or there's Ruby and Yang."

"She's a friend from back home and I suggested it would be better for us both to mingle more." Umber relaxed back into a more demure sitting position with her knees drawn up to her chest. "After breakfast we don't have a lot of time before the initiation, and I would hate to horn in on the girls' sisterly bonding time since we don't know how things will stand after." She pointed a finger dramatically at Jaune and winked. "And you sir seriously underestimate how enjoyable your company can be."

Acknowledging the inevitable Jaune gathered up his bedroll and walked in a surprisingly relaxed silence with Umber to the locker room where after grabbing clean clothing they parted ways to head to the gender separated shower and changing areas. After a quick shower and getting dressed he almost chuckled when he found Umber in the shared lavatory fully dressed and trying somewhat successfully to dry her long hair with one of the provided bath towels that even the boy could tell was not adequate to the task.

"Would you like some help?" He ventured while holding a fresh towel in each hand. The girl blushed a little but nodded in acceptance of the offer. "I'm surprised you don't have a blow dryer."

"I usually cheat and use water dust to draw the moisture out." Umber sighed as he gently gathered her hair behind her head holding it between the two large cloths and began rubbing them back and forth while working his way down to the tip. "Yang said one of the announcements was that we were not to use any spells with offensive potential on campus before initiation. Since we weren't there to hear it, I would rather not take any chances."

Jaune just shrugged in response, there really wasn't anything more to say. He just watched as the girl finished drying her hair and tucking her fox ears back and slipping the hairband over them to keep them from popping out of her hair. "Thank you for helping me."

Things went smoothly from there with Jaune only having a small laugh at her healthy appetite for eggs and bacon instead of the large platters of pancakes the cafeteria offered reminding him even more of home.

The first real hurdle Jaune found in dealing with Umber came when they went back to the locker room where they had both picked lockers on the far side of the room and after he had strapped on Crocea Mors he turned to find her with her gear on including straps for a new backpack. He had to guess it was a backpack because Umber had her back pressed up against a pillar and looked to be in no hurry to move. A glance towards the exit was all it took for him to understand why.

"You noticed yesterday that Weiss isn't likely to recognize you." He quietly observed.

"That was yesterday in a crowded and poorly lit grand hall." Umber whispered back. "I can't get out of this well lit room without passing within a few feet of her." His look of disbelief prompted her to continue. "Imagine if you were forced to carry an open bucket of oil down a narrow path lined with torches. You can't let go of the bucket, you know that there is only a small chance of it being ignited, but you know if it goes up you have no chance of putting it back out."

Jaune took a few minutes to look over the room before he unstrapped his weapon and handed it to Umber. Pulling a facility map out of the pocket of his hoodie he grinned at her confused expression. "Here is what we will do then. I'll make sure everyone's attention is on me. You follow a few steps behind and make sure to keep this map blocking your view of Weiss. In this instance it will be a case of if you can't see her she won't be able to see your face."

"Ridiculous!" He whined loudly as he walked past Ruby and Yang, earning a raised eyebrow from the other blond. "There's no way I put my stuff in locker six three six yesterday! I would have remembered having to count that high!" A glance to his left revealed Umber following as he asked and barely restraining giggles. "Why does this have to happen today?!" 

Reaching the far end of the room Umber handed him back his weapon and then he made the mistake of glancing back into the room. Her friend really did remind him of his sister right down to the incredibly fake smile she was giving Weiss as the girl talked to her. He nodded for Umber to head on out, and glanced back at the redhead. "Once more into the breach." He noticed her smile became more genuine as she realized his intent. Having four older sisters hadn't taught him much about what worked in flirting, but boy was it hard not to get an earful about what didn't. 

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"So Pyrrha have you given any thought to whose team you would like to be on? I'm sure there are many who would be eager to unite with such a strong, well known individual such as yourself." The girl stated oh so politely. To which she would have loved to say anyone but yours.

"Well I'm not quite sure." Pyrrha glanced past Weiss to see Umber join Jaune by the exit. She couldn't help but smile at just how nicely he was playing with her friend. "I was planning on letting the chips fall how they may."

Umber handed a sword with a rather sturdy looking sheath back to the young man, and Pyrrha had to contain a chuckle at remembering his loud lament about locker numbers. She could only cast glances in their direction so as to not give her "companion" the impression she wasn't paying attention. While she wouldn't claim to be any good at reading lips, it was easy to pick out the boy nodding towards the exit and then in her direction with the words "once more" to which Umber nodded enthusiastically before turning and leaving the room.

"Well I was thinking maybe we could be on a team together." The heiress continued the mostly one sided conversation.

"Well that would be grand!" Pyrrha said with some enthusiasm as she tried to subtly wave the boy over. If Weiss assumed it was a response to her statement then all the better. She had to assume the other girl took it that way as her evil grin all but gave away her megalomaniacal musings at the idea.

"You know what else is great." Her knight in faded jeans stated while casually stepping between her and the girl in white. "Me! Jaune Arc. Nice to meet you." She had heard drunken sailors deliver lines more smoothly but at the moment she could quite happily have kissed him.

"Oh you again!" The heiress grumbled. While Pyrrha took the opportunity to close and step away from her locker.

"It's nice to meet you Jaune." She happily responded to her rescuer.

"Ya ya," The boy stepped up to create space between the girls again and with a wink returned to the offensive against the heiress. "So Weiss I couldn't help but overhear your fondness of me the other day."

"Oh you have got to be kidding me." The girl whined.

"Don't worry no need to be embarrassed." Jaune bull rushed on not giving Weiss a chance to regain control of the conversation. "So I was hearing rumors about teams! I was thinking you and I would make a good one. Whatta ya say?" Pyrrha had to contain a laugh from the outrage showing on the heiress' face at having the same insinuation she had been forcing moments before turned back on her. Apparently it never occurred to the other girl that others could overhear them talking.

"Actually I think the teams are composed of four students each so..." The champion began hoping to draw some of the ire directed at him away.

"You don't say." The young man slid towards her and continued his playfully confident delivery. "Well hot stuff if you play your cards right maybe you can join the winning team."

"Jaune? is it?" Weiss interposed herself between them and held him to a double arms length from Pyrrha. The champion only wished she could do the same in turn. "Do you have any idea who you are talking to?"

"Not in the slightest Snow Angel." Pyrrha double blinked at that, he would come to help her simply because she was a friend of a friend?

"This is Pyrrha." The girl introduced her as though they had known each other for more than a few minutes. In truth she had been trying to avoid this situation and only stayed because she sensed Umber was otherwise trapped further in the room with a potentially irate Weiss if she had tried to blow her off and leave.

"Hello again." She waved to Jaune.

"Pyrrha graduated top of her class at Sanctum." She rolled her eyes so only he could see, like this public knowledge somehow made them closer.

"Never heard of it." She felt like her grin threatened to split her face at the scoff his easy dismissive response earned from the other girl.

"She's won the Mistral Regional Tournament four years in a row! A new record!" Pyrrha was having to really hold in giggles at how easily the other girl was losing her cool.

"The what?" The delivery was so easy she had to believe his lack of knowledge was real. Which intrigued the champion, Joan had mentioned something about a gag order on discussing Hunter activities in the house but this was extreme. She just hoped he didn't push the heiress to much further.

Fortunately rather then going on the attack the other girl started to comically flail her arms uselessly at her sides. "She's on the cover of every Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes box!"

"Oh that was you!" Jaune put his hands together and pointed at Pyrrha with overly cute adoration. "They only do that for star athletes and cartoon characters!"

"Yah it was pretty cool." She was surprised to find herself blushing a little. "Sadly the cereal is not very good for you."

"So after hearing all that do you honestly believe you! Are in a position to ask her! To be on your team." The uppity snit just had to try taking the stuffing out of him.

The boy deflated under the pressure. "I guess you're right...sorry."

Pyrrha stepped up and put a hand on his shoulder. "Actually Jaune I think you'd make a great leader."

The effect as she put her hands behind her back and smiled was instantaneous with him being all cute confidence again. "Dou oh! Stop it."

"Seriously please stop it." The annoying midget came back again. "This sort of behavior should not be encouraged."

"Sounds like Pyrrha's on for team Jaune. Spots are filling up quick. Now I'm not supposed to do this, but maybe I can pull a few strings and find a place for you. What do you say?" The boy came on like a verbal freight train battering through her defense.

"Okay that's a bit to close." The girl called for an assist. "Pyrrha a little help please." The Champion realized it was time to extract her rescuer and for practice decided to tag his hoodie with Milo.

"I'm sorry." She offered somewhat lamely before she was interrupted by the intercom.

"All first year students please report to Beacon Cliffs for initiation."

The heiress flounced by Jaune with a sniff. Pyrrha reached out with her semblance to take hold of Milo and unpin the boy from the wall. "It was nice meeting you."

"Likewise..." She wished he could have seen her smile as he sighed, but the time he bought for Umber would be wasted if Weiss cornered her on the cliffs. So she chose to follow the girl and keep her distracted.

As they left the building and walked to the cliffs Weiss was in enough of a huff that she remained blissfully silent which Pyrrha was immensely grateful for. As they came in sight of the cliff she found Umber had taken up position on one of the first launchers and secured a few filled positions between them. While Weiss was looking at the professors she discretely caught Umber's attention and mouthed the words, 'I have a solution to your problem.'

She threw Umber a huge grin after Professor Ozpin announced their partners would be decided by eye contact. She attached Akouo to her bracer just before being launched into the air and used a few nudges of her semblance on it and her greaves to control her flight. After ploughing through two trees, and rolling into a ready position on a branch she brought out Milo in rifle form and sighted her target through the scope helping her lock on to his Aura in her mind. After shifting Milo back into a spear she launched it down range. 

Delicate course correction with her semblance was required to line up where she sensed the space between his Aura was and where the small barb had been left from Milo's spear tip the first time. With a loud thunk she sent her weapon right through the same hole and pinned Jaune embarrassingly high up in a tree. Saving him from a rough landing, but also making it unlikely anyone would try to approach.

With a actual giggle at the irony of the situation she unclipped the plate with her spear and shield symbol from her sash and hung that on the strap to her pouch. Shaking it out a little she wrapped the veil around her head and shoulders. Within moments all her clothing and armor changed to dappled browns, grays, and greens. Lifting up slightly with her semblance on her greaves she started to skip lightly between the tree branches towards where Jaune was waiting.

With a quiet crackle a large curved fang of ice appeared off to the side of her in the woods and she saw a small figure actually run up it. Umber swooped in just in time to catch the little goth loli as her feet lost traction "Thanks for dropping in Little Rose." Pyrrha stifled a laugh at her sister's pun and it became even harder when she heard the exuberant response. "We're flying!"

She continued to slip like another shadow through the tree branches. She was born a Spartan, she had trained with weapons since before she could walk. It was hard for her to explain to her parents why one of her most precious childhood memories was of a camping trip. She loved her father but his idea of roughing it was not taking the captain's or VIP quarters on whatever ship he was traveling on. With her mother running the trading company it practically guaranteed that any family trips were taken on one of the company's ships. So it was a special occasion when her family got together with a larger family for a camp out and she ended up just being one girl among other girls doing normal things.

She spent the whole time just playing with the other girls. She and Umber got to listen to a baby's heartbeat through the mother's tummy. There was even this adorable toddler that insisted on climbing into her lap to curl up and take a nap, she had actually pleaded with her parents to let her keep that little girl.

Most special of all though was an inordinately rare occurrence. She had always been a prodigy, and could count on one hand the number of people outside her family who had ever caught on that she would want or need assistance and acted on it. During that trip it had been when she and Umber had decided snares they found around a clearing near their camp were needlessly cruel and set about springing them all. The result was the trappers caught them in the act of doing so, and she found herself facing four teens with only a walking stick.

She could never forget how this boy came out of nowhere and peppering the teens with water balloons and flowery insults tricked them all into chasing him over the side of a bluff where they fell into a river. 

So today her count didn't go up by any. It didn't even matter that he didn't remember her name. The same sweet boy had chosen again to come to her rescue like she was just a regular girl.

She stopped on a branch seeing something that made her want to grind her teeth in frustration. An interloper had somehow reached the goal first and was hesitantly looking up at the target. The blond boy waved and let out a nervous laugh, to which the uninvited guest merely sniffed at and stomped off into the trees. "Hey wait, who's gonna get me down from here!"

She grinned as she let the concealing technique fade, affixing the veil as a sash again she dropped lightly to the ground. Stepping out from the trees and under the boy she crossed her arms under her chest and smiled up knowing full well the view she was giving him. "Jaune! Do you have any spots left on your team?"

"Very funny." The response was grumpy but the smile he returned was warm. He rescuer waiting again for her to help him back to safety. If she could have Umber hugging her back again the moment would be perfect.

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So many moons have passed but if you're still reading this I want to thank you for reading the reboot of this story. Hopefully I have improved it enough to merit the awesome cover art my friend TheNightWishMaster on deviantArt made for me.

An acknowledgment is due to literalsin for him giving me permission to use the names of Arc family members in his story The Name of the Game

Also a thank you or curse on Azure megacyber and his story The Gameshow of Jaune Arc's Dating Life for pointing out the connection between Pyrrha and Agent Carolina that lead me to binge watch the entire series, and not work on this story. By the way Felix was a complete ass but listening to a confident sounding Jaune was interesting in its own way.


	2. Players and Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The initiation and the teams

Umber couldn't help but smile at the simple excitement of the younger girl at the prospect of flying. Unfortunately it wasn't quite the case. Without an extra spell on Ruby to reduce her weight catching her had resulted in it being a slow controlled fall back to the ground for the both of them. Umber could have increased the thrust output like she had in her match against Reese but that could only be maintained for a short while before she risked being burned.

"That is so cool!" The little reaper enthused as she hopped out of Umber's arms and dropped the last meter. She turned to look at the devices as the older girl settled lightly to the ground. "You control them through your semblance?" Ruby pointed at the shields on Umber's arms. "You mentioned it about your Rumble Stilts but I never had a chance to ask how."

"Watch." Umber smiled as the girl's eyes widened. Instead of the shields starting to move a scarlet ribbon floated up and started spiraling through the air. "It is a form of puppetry or telekinesis, as long as I can connect to it with my aura. I can move small light objects quickly and with a high amount of dexterity." The ribbon rolled itself back up into Umber's hand. "The heavier the object the slower I can move it until it just becomes so heavy I can't make things move at all. I first discovered it with sewing needles so I used to call it needlework."

"That sounds awesome..." The younger girl trailed off as she looked down where the toes of her boot scraped a small trench in the soft dirt. "I can only move really fast."

"How fast?" Umber took ahold of adorable little creature's shoulders to keep from giving in to the impulse to cuddle her. 

The smaller girl just seemed to dissolve into rose petals. "Fast!" Umber felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to find Ruby behind her with a cat like grin, even pawing playfully at the air. Even with two sets of ears Umber couldn't say with certainty if the word had been said before or after she moved. 

"Is it just short bursts or can you cover a pretty good distance?" The weaver tilted her head to the right but kept her eyes on the girl. 

"It's sort of like sprinting." Ruby conceded

"Do your eyes tear up from the wind moving so fast creates?" Umber grinned while tilting her head forward and slightly to the left. "If so I have something I'd like you to help me test, but that will have to wait until we can get somewhere with less company."

"Wha...?" Ruby was cut off, and her question answered as from the fog shrouded greenery around them a chorus of growls accompanied the appearance of menacing red eyes from the fog shrouded woods. The little reaper quickly deployed her scythe and stood ready to attack. 

"With your speed, and the sweep of your weapon, I think I will let you take the front Ruby." Umber called over her shoulder as she turned to face the part of the pack emerging from behind them. "I will keep the others off your back."

"Rodger!" The younger girl cheered as she blasted forward and slashed through the first of the smaller Beowolves. The enchantress grinned in response. Seven for safety, six for the normals and one special for the big guy thrashing around in the back. With a clicking sound two thumb sized rockets dropped from Umber’s backpack and lit up with a blaze of yellow fire flying around her and towards the hulking bipedal black wolf creatures stalking out from the trees. The first two tried to dodge only to have the rockets track them and punch into the centers of their chests. Moments later they were ripped apart from the inside by blades of wind.

Umber grinned as another pair of rockets dropped from her backpack and a small tug came from the belts around her thighs. The Beowolves approaching her tried to knock the missiles from the air with their claws only to have the projectiles dance around the creature’s paws. This pair became statues of ice impeding the progress of the others coming towards her. The sound of her partner’s high caliber rounds almost covered the snapping of branches as the Alpha tried to skirt through the trees to get to Ruby.

Her grin transformed into a smirk as she spotted the lumbering shadow through the trees and a thicker ribbon wrapped needle pulled out from the hem of her skirt and silently zipped over to wrap around the creature’s throat. A trio of the smaller members of the pack had finally worked past their frozen fallen members to try and strike Umber directly with their claws coming in to dismember her from above. She brought her shields up, seemingly to protect her head, the blades extended from the bottom of the shields before spinning around while stretching out to three meter whips of metal to slice off an arm followed by slashing through the torso of the one attacking from the front.

The chain linked spikes sank into the ground behind Umber and with a quick hop the retracting chains pulled her back from the pair pincering in from the sides.The Beowolves tried to follow her and were impaled on spears of ice erupting from the ground where she had been. The battle shouts and gun reports from her dance partner hit a discordant note, and Umber turned just in time to see Ruby’s skid to a stop next to her after being knocked back by the Alpha Beowulf. “Bad Dog!” Umber shouted with a bit of vindictive glee as the ribbon wrapped around the monster’s neck turned the creature’s head into a blazing inferno. “Play Dead!”

The beast panicked and in its death throes managed to not only scatter the rest of the pack but also set the trees around the clearing on fire. “I think we need to get away from here Ruby.” Umber grabbed the younger girl’s wrist and setting action to words ran for a gap where there was neither fire nor trees and the breeze was coming into her face.

Before long in their run it changed from her pulling Ruby to being pulled along herself as her stamina proved less than the younger girl’s. "That was like what you did to the guy's sword in the tournament." Umber could only nod in response as the two of them came to a stop. "How did you do that?"

"First I don't think I will try that one again…..monsters thrash about too much." The weaver got out haltingly while straightening up. "I had a fire dust technique woven into a ribbon wrapped around a pin. I used my semblance to launch it like a dart and then unwrapped the ribbon around its neck."

"How could you stretch your Aura that far though?" In response to the question Umber hung the shield in her right hand from her belt and reached down to her thigh. Plucking something from the leather strap there she held it up for Ruby to see against her palm. "Thread?"

"I have to do some special treatment to it, but as long as the thread isn't broken, I haven't found a range limit yet." Umber smiled as she started walking again. "I learned the trick from my mom, but she could only use it to activate spells at a distance." Glancing up at the tall tree they were next to she paused. "How are you at tree climbing? If we can get up off the ground on one of those large branches I think we should be safe from anything that is supposed to be in this forest other than Nevermores while we talk." She paused and scratched her cheek with a slight blush. "Plus with all this fog I've lost my bearings so I need to get a view of the cliffs again."

"I can use Crescent Rose to jump up, but..." It was Ruby's turn to look bashful. "There's no branches I can reach on this tree otherwise."

"Want to see an easy way?" Umber grinned wide and Ruby watched as the girl put her silvery boot up against the large trunk, at the same time a dark purple ribbon wrapped itself around her ankle and over then below the arch of her foot. The girl then "stepped up" onto the trunk and another ribbon did the same to her other boot.

"That's so cool!" The girl quietly squealed.

Umber preened a bit at the praise before offering her free hand to Ruby. "Come on and I can use another set of ribbons for you. Actually if you don't mind talking your boots off I can teach you how to use the spell ribbons yourself. I want to see how much more interesting your fighting style can be when every surface is available for you to run on....well maybe still not vertical ice."

"Why take my boots off?" Ruby stepped up on the trunk giggling a little as the ribbons wrapped her boots and the world changed orientation. "What spell? is this?"

"To protect the ribbons, and to make an Aura connection easier for a novice. Step carefully." Umber slowly guided Ruby up the trunk to a thick branch twenty meters above the ground. "I used Gravity Dust to mimic a Glyph my older sister uses to attract and repel things, but with practice anyone with active Aura can use mine." Sitting down straddling the branch she grins as the ribbons on both their boots roll back up. "Back to what I was talking about earlier have you ever worn eyeshadow?" She pats the branch in front of her inviting Ruby to also sit against the trunk, and begins taking off her own boots.

"Uhh... weren't we talking about my eyes tearing up when I run?" Ruby sits down and watches as Umber wraps a ribbon around her stocking clad feet before slipping her boots back on. "What does that have to do with makeup?" While waiting on an answer Ruby starts untying and loosening the laces on her boots.

"Well two years ago I watched the CCT broadcast of one of Pyrrha's matches and her opponent tried to blind her by throwing a pepper bomb in her eyes." Umber finished securing the straps on her boots and reached over offering to help Ruby take off one of hers. "I have developed an eyeshadow laced with Wind Dust that should slow down the air over your eyes forming an invisible dome that would protect against that." They succeeded in getting Ruby's right boot off, ribbon secured, and the smaller girl started tying the laces after pushing her foot back in. "I can't run or fly fast enough normally to really test it against wind, and I don't intend to throw pepper into mine or anyone else's eyes even if I am certain it would work."

"Wait you flew fast enough to catch up to me running." Ruby looked at her disbelievingly as Umber pulled off her left boot.

"I cheated to accomplish that." Umber admitted as she secured the second ribbon of Ruby's pair and held the boot so the girl could push her foot back in. "I used another technique I learned from my older sister to accelerate my own time and the air in my vicinity." 

Looking at the incredulous stare she received Umber smirked. "This is my best work." Unclipping her chin strap Umber showed the inside of the domed hat for Ruby to see the clockwork hands pattern in thin golden wire sewn on the inside. "A spell pattern that works only with Aura, but it's so intensive I can only use it for a few minutes in a day."

"I thought you were just wearing that to use like a directional dish for your hearing." Umber's ears popped up in surprise causing Ruby to giggle while she tied the last of her bootlaces. "You kept moving your head around before the Beowolves came out of the trees, you were tracking them right?"

"You can be very observant when you want to be." Umber reached into her belt pouch and pulled out a small rectangular case that had another spell seal with odd runes inscribed in the top. Opening it revealed a mirrored top over a makeup brush and a dark grayish red powder. "Shall we see how you look with smokey rose accents for those silver ey.....es?"

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Her green eyes opened wide in shock, before she closed them again in concentration. “For it is in passing that we achieve immortality.” Right now even as she heard the ceremonial words coming from her mouth she found herself struggling with what should have been a mundane task. “Through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all.” For Public Relations and morale after the second time she won the Mistral Regional her agent had arranged for their champion to unlock the Auras of new combat students at Sanctum that didn't have anyone to do it for them in their family.

She was happy if it gave those youngsters that didn't come from a huntsman lineage a little more pride and self confidence. Those experiences for her were like dipping her hands into a natural pool and drawing a small cleft into one of the banks to allow the water to flow.

This was another order entirely. “Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee.” This was like she had pushed through a thin sheet of ice and fell head first into a river. Once she finally succeeded in drawing her Aura fully back into herself she leaned over and took a few gasping breaths. She didn't feel tired though, quite the opposite.

"Pyrrha?" The lovable blond spoke her name with concern.

"It's alright." She was surprised by how calm her voice sounded when inside she felt like doing cartwheels. "I used my Aura to unlock yours, but the energy that protects you now is your own." She couldn't stop the smirk that formed on her lips as she watched the small cut on his cheek disappear, and decided to make one of the biggest understatements she could imagine. "You have a lot of it."

It might have been the feeling of euphoria, or the imagined mini Pyrrha dancing around with victory fans, that messed with her normally impeccable sense of direction. The result was that her path strayed west of true north and away from where they had heard gunshots from before.

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He was careful not to let the slightest twitch of a muscle in his face betray his actions, a few deft keystrokes and the last few minutes of footage of a particular pair disappeared. Now if the recordings were checked it would show them walking through the forest, followed by again walking through the forest. The missing minutes would likely be dismissed as a period where the pair had been out of view. 

It wouldn't do for an already suspicious deputy to see evidence putting the lie to his carefully crafted narrative, and 'speak of the Grimm'. "Our last probable pair has been formed sir." The prim blond commented as she walked up from behind him. "Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren," He lowered his face a little further to hide his grin in his scarf at her sighing tone. "That poor boy, I can't imagine them getting along well. Still he is probably better off than Miss Nikos. I don't care what his transcripts say that Jaune fellow is not ready for this level of combat."

He buried his gaze into his tablet so she wouldn't see his eyes, it had taken very careful planning to make sure there was enough of a paper trail to get those transcripts past her high level of scrutiny. While he wished Julian and Lily had decided to unlock the boy's Aura, it was far from the first time he had seen overprotective parents creating whatever roadblock they could in hopes of preventing their children from pursuing a career as huntsmen. Fortunately for the boy's aspirations, and his efforts, not even Glynda, for all her suspicions could tell without a direct examination that Jaune's Aura had been still sealed. 

"I guess we'll find out soon enough. At their current pace they should reach the temple within just a few minutes." She turned away from the cliffs and he felt the danger of his deception being revealed pass. "Speaking of which, what did you use for relics this year?" He barely heard her, his attention turned back to a pair he had not anticipated. "Professor Ozpin?"

"I am still not sure it is wise to have agreed to James' request to let that girl attend school here, and as a spy for Atlas no less." He found her glancing over his shoulder to see a pair of girls sitting in a tree displayed on his tablet. "I have seen the psychological evaluations they had on her, a tightly coiled ball of resentment ready to snap is putting it politely."

"She appears much calmer in the short time since being away from Atlas, and as a member of the military James has discretion to assign her any mission he wishes. Without having to deal with a council that already refused to acknowledge her Mistrali citizenship." Ozpin's green eyes were filled with mirth as he looked at the younger woman. "If he choose to give her a long term mission away from the people and places she felt were leaving her without any form of agency, I hardly see it as an undue burden to have her study our teaching methods as a student." He finally grinned. "Perhaps we should return the favor at some point, I believe that is what is called a student exchange program."

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"Remnant to Umber!" She came back to her senses to find Ruby waving a hand in front of her face. "You just suddenly went spacey, is everything alright?" She wasn't honestly sure how to answer the girl.

"I don't think anything is wrong, just surprising." She tried extending her Aura sense in the direction she had last sensed both Jaune and Pyrrha and found she could sense them both thanks to the many spells she had woven into the veil Pyrrha wore.

"Your eyes got spacey again." Ruby was now looking at her with more concern. "Did something happen with Yang or Jaune?"

"What would make you think that?" Her new partner was full of surprises today it seemed.

"That charm you put on our weapons, it was something so you could track us right." The little reaper was very observant indeed. "It looks a little like the patterns I saw Professor Goodwitch use to do lots of neat things with Dust."

"It is something like that, but it actually doesn't do much by itself." She finally admitted. "Did you share this suspicion with Yang? She is fine as far as I can tell."

"So it's Jaune that caught your attention." Ruby grinned when the older girl nodded. "I didn't say anything to Yang but she might have noticed on her own, but what tipped off Jaune? He bolted as soon as he got a good look at it."

"He might know a few people who use the same technique." She finally admitted with a sigh.

"The sisters he kept suggesting we reminded him of?" Ruby giggled at the surprise on Umber's face. "So if nobody is in trouble....dish on what the charm does."

"Only if you agree to help me test this." She held up the makeup case to which Ruby eagerly nodded. "Close your eyes."

"Like I said earlier the charm actually doesn't do much on its own." Umber swirled the brush against the powder before lightly brushing it across Ruby's eyelids and up towards the corners leaving a dark grey shadow. "It is the most basic casting circle I know, but it contains Dust in the mix and is very sensitive to Aura. Could you blink for me a few times?" Her model did as asked and Umber turned the mirror for her to see as she replaced the brush in the holder. Ruby grinned at the dark red black the eyeshadow turned after a few moments. "Most of the powder is made up of activated carbon to absorb the moisture from the air or it would create a fog in front of your eyes" 

"So is Wind Dust the reason your eyeshadow is green?" Umber just gave an affirmative nod rather than giving the little reaper more detail. 

"It will only last a few hours before it will need to be wiped off and reapplied. There are some moistened cloths in a compartment on the underside." The enchantress leaned forward to hand Ruby the case, and gently blew a breath of air on the girl's face as she reached for it. "Did you feel that?"

"On my cheeks, but not my eyes." Ruby shook her head negatively. "So how does the seal being sensitive to Aura help?"

"I have trained to be able to sense the Aura's of others. To the point where I can sense not only the relative strength, but also to distinguish between people based solely on Aura." Umber closed the case and handed it to the girl. "I use my Aura in order to start making the seal, but after that it sort of picks up the Auras of those around it and it acts like an antenna extending the range I can sense people's Aura at."

"I also put one on my diary and most of my other valuables." She reached out and playfully poked Ruby's nose. "So I can also sense if anyone picks them up or goes through them."

Ruby frowned at her while cutely rubbing her nose. "So what happened with Jaune?"

"I'm not sure, but he is well because I can sense his Aura even now." Umber quickly assured the other girl when she saw the look of concern growing on her face again. "Here is what happened. I sensed Pyrrha's Aura for a moment, she decided to snag Jaune out of the air earlier by the way, then all of a sudden Jaune's Aura completely swamped hers." 

"His Aura went from not bad to I can't even measure that." She spread her arms out dramatically, causing another giggle from her audience. "I'm serious the Dust in the seal should have lasted a few weeks and it just burned away in a moment."

"So you can sense him at a distance without the charm now?" The budding strategist quietly observed. "So can you sense anyone else?"

"Just you, Yang, and Pyrrha at the moment. Actually I can only sense Jaune because he is with Pyrrha." Umber conceded with a sigh. "I could point us in their direction, but I couldn't tell you what direction that actually is without getting sight of the cliffs to be oriented." Carefully getting her feet back under herself Umber stood up. "So our only option is to continue climbing the tree." 

Playfully she took hold of Ruby's upper arms, picked the girl up, set her on her feet, and then turned her to face the tree trunk. "It's easiest if you visualize flowing your Aura into the ribbon and then out of it into whatever you want to stick to like tiny claws or suction cups."

After a few tentative steps Ruby set off at a jog up the tree, reaching the top and turning back with a grin before Umber had much more then a chance to get started up ,mostly from trying to gage the fog and realizing that even the top was not in the clear. "Whoa! Umber you gotta see this!"

Umber's grin matched hers when she walked up beside the girl and looked into the branches of a slightly smaller tree a few dozen meters away. "Well that could give us an entertaining way to find the temple and test the eye protection." She pulled a belt made out of nylon webbing and covered in green and purple spell forms worked into a feather motif from her pouch. "Put this on first, all you have to do is put Aura into it and if you fall it will let you float down like a feather."

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"Do you think this is the place?" Hearing his question she looked away from the cave entrance and at the old looking pictographs showing stick figure men fighting what looked like a large scorpion. The cave entrance looked too small for anything she shouldn't be able to handle fairly easily. 

Not wanting to admit she might have lead him astray she nods. "We could at least go in a short distance and see."

She smiled as he took the opportunity to show off his outdoor survival skills and quickly put together a torch. He lit it quite neatly by taking a flint from one of his pockets and drawing his sword out of the sheath just far enough with his right hand holding the torch and the sword handle so that he could draw the flint across the blade with his left for a spark to catch on the rag.

As she followed him into the cave she shrugged her shoulders to make sure her weapons were loose and ready to bring to hand, but surely the creature depicted outside was long gone by now, the drawings were so old and faded.

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Umber prided herself on creativity and flexibility. She would be the first to admit that she would never be able to actually win a stand up fight against an exceptional fighter like Pyrrha, but her preferred style of fighting was fifty percent misdirection, forty percent preparation, and only the last ten percent was direct conflict. As such she could say she had won several real world fight scenarios Uncle Alex had set up for them against her friend before being taken to Atlas. 

One of her favorite multipurpose tools was nylon webbing straps. Incredibly light, very strong, and with her hand held hot knife, needles, thread, and several rolls of the material in a few minutes she could produce anything from a safety harness to a capture net.

She wouldn't be able to produce a capture net for their super sized target, she still felt like giggling whenever she thought of the surprise on Pyrrha's face when she had been caught by one, but all that she really needed was a way to make sure she could get her partner back to the ground safely after she broke their new toy.

Oh yes she was going to break it, just the thought of a Grimm occupying her favorite space, doing what she most enjoyed, was enough to make her want to crush it.

So in very short order and with the additional items of a grommet and carabiner she used her hot knife and needle and thread to quickly transform a four meter length of webbing into a durable foot stirrup carry line that could attach to her belt. She had seen the younger girl make it down safely on her own before, but if she could make sure her partner made a safe exit from their planned escapade she would.

"Alright we'll have to jump together." Ruby whispered to her urgently as they stood on a thick branch overlooking the nest. "Once we land on its back I'll fire Crescent Rose at its tail to spook it into the air." 

Following a quick count of three they landed, and with the report of of the sniper scythe, they found themselves riding the most impressive standing roller coaster she could imagine. They quickly cleared the fog and she could see the cliffs, which would make that direction south, moments later the giant Nevermore realized it had passengers and banked stiffly in an unsuccessful effort to dislodge them. This brought the area east into view and Umber felt like growling when she saw the almost straight clear path leading from the cliffs towards the north. 

The giant carrion eater lookalike did an impressive slalom through the air, combined with drops and steep climbs. All in all she was feeling relieved that she had picked up Ruby as a partner. Jaune was entertaining but if an airship did a number on him this would be a mess. 

Fortunately their ride for all its changing direction, accompanied by the crouching girls' cheering like it was a carnival ride, seemed to be headed generally north. Umber discreetly started threading ribbon wrapped pins through the feathers on the Grimm's back toward the wing joints, a sadistic grin playing across her face as the dull metal dug into the creature's flesh, it only grew when the bird didn't even feel them enough to squawk. 

Before long a large clearing with what looked like a circular ruin came into view. "Alright Ruby time to make our escape. Just put one of your feet into the stirrup and run the strap through the belt I had you put on before you hand it to me."

"I can get down on my....." The little reaper trailed off. "Did you just hear a high pitched scream?"

"I can't hear anything over the wind Ruby!" Which was true, her hat was vibrating bad enough she could barely hear the girl. Maybe it was time to drop the hat and sew the time dilation seal on her backpack. Something to look into after finishing the initiation, it wasn't like she could hide her fox ears afterwards anyway. "I know you can, but I think Yang is down there! I really don't want to have to explain to mama bear why I left you on your own!" The girl rolled her eyes but did as asked handing the end with the buckle to her. "Ready to see big ugly fall from the sky?"

When the girl nodded Umber reached out to her embedded ribbons and waited for the wings to come fully up. In an instant the Ice Dust in a dozen ribbons flash froze the joints of the Nevermore's wings and the massive muscles it used for the downstroke pulled hard enough that they could hear the crack over the wind as something shattered. At that moment Umber activated her thrusters and pulled the two of them safely away as the monster began to fall from the sky. Her cheer as the thing plowed into the northern tree line was mirrored by her partner

"Incoming!" Out of instinct Umber launched one of her pins in the direction she saw Ruby point. A heartbeat later the ribbon spiraled out and a rippling amber star pattern appeared inside the rim it created, just in time for a familiar blond haired boy to crash into it. The little reaper's reaction was almost as fast swinging herself forward to wrap her arms and legs around the boy before he could begin to fall. 

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So today started off beautifully for him, woken up by a pretty girl who was determined to act just like his little sisters around him. Coming to the rescue of another girl who reminded him of his younger sister was actually a high point. Everyone else acting like being tossed by catapult platforms into a forest full of bloodthirsty monsters was perfectly normal should have told him something was off. 

It was a mixed bag being snagged out of the air by Pyrrha’s spear, he was happy to be alive certainly but... she had asked him to lift up his feet before she casually threw her shield like a discus, bouncing it off another tree, sticking it in the tree below his feet for him to stand on so he could pull the spear lose and jump down. While she definitely seemed nice enough, the grin she gave him after she had jumped up to retrieve her shield as he handed her the spear both reminded him of Jillian when she was feeling really mischievous and or when she had found a sweet treat she was planning to devour.

Trekking through the woods was a higher point with her patient explantation of Aura and unlocking his, for a moment he thought he could actually sense her emotions through the connection she created but overwhelming giddiness couldn’t be right, could it?

Leading the way into the cave he had felt proud of getting to show off his limited but hard earned woodsman skills in making the torch. Only for a new low of embarrassment to be reached when he had screamed like a girl when the giant scorpion had revealed itself.

Why was he contemplating all this right now though? 

It was mostly trying to not think about the softness pressed against his back and Ruby’s limbs wrapped around him as they swung erratically back and forth. On the plus side he wasn’t feeling motion sick so maybe that was a protective benefit of Aura. On the negative side glancing up he could see the look of concentration on Umber’s face as she held her breath and struggled to control their descent back to the ground, the heat flowing up around her from the backdraft off the thrusters she was folded into a kneeling position over was enough to make his eyes water in sympathy. Rescued by a tag team of girls after embarrassing himself so thoroughly is definitely a new low.

Landing in an undignified tangle of limbs with Ruby on the ground he sighed, as if to punctuate his humiliation a metal carabiner thunked him in the head after Umber disconnected the strap connecting herself to the two of them. Hearing laughter he looked up to notice the blond haired bombshell Yang hurrying over to them, and started worrying that she might go off like one, given his experience with blond haired older sisters, when he realized the compromising position he and Ruby must be in.

“That was so awesome you two!” His sigh of relief was mostly covered by the loud squawk of surprise Umber gave as the larger girl pulled her out of the air and gathered the three of them into a bear hug.

A whooping cheer and loud boom preceded a black bone spiked bear growling and stumbling into the clearing where it collapsed and started smoking. "Aww it's broken." A ginger haired girl in a pink armored dress lamented after rolling from where she had been sitting on the back of its neck.

A boy dressed green came running up from behind where the rider and odd mount had come from, pausing beside the felled beast he panted out. "Nora please! don't ever do that again." The girl however was already inside the circular ruin, where she grabbed the golden rook and started dancing around with it. "Nora!"

"Coming Ren!" The girl giggled as she let the rook drop from her head into her open left hand before prancing off back to the boy. 

"Did that girl just ride in on an Ursa?" He and Umber managed to work loose from Yang's hug enough that Jaune was able to see the speaker was a familiar raven haired beauty, the blond girl seized the opportunity to gather her sister up in an even tighter hug earning a mewl of protest.

He could only sigh in response to the antics, and the rhetorical question, as Umber offered him a hand up. "Jaune where is Pyrrha?" 

"Is Pyrrha a redhead wearing bronze colored armor?" He was saved from having to answer by the girl he now recognized from the incident at the airship docks. "Because if that's her she is running here with a Deathstalker on her tail."

Looking toward the tree line to the northwest they saw the champion jump elegantly over and between the clawed pincer of the giant scorpion Grimm. With a series of clicks, that were almost covered up by Umber’s growl, he watched as a half dozen mini rockets floated out of her pack before flying down range at the monster.

The rockets impacted the creature's legs coating several of the joints in ice and bringing it to a sliding halt. "Ruby! Let's have an accuracy contest! My rockets versus your sniper rifle! First one to take out fugly's eyes from here gets first pick on beds when we get our room assignments!" Jaune felt a bit nervous as a vindictive grin spread across the weaver’s face as the younger girl whooped. 

They waited for Pyrrha to clear the last stretch. He was a bit surprised when the redhead grabbed him and Umber in a hug that would have done Yang proud. At the same time Ruby planted her scythe and sighted the creature through her scope. Jaune could barely see the things eyes at this range and guessed it was the same for Umber. With a rueful shake of his head he realized a contest of skill with a prize is a great way to motivate others to do things for you.

The giant arachnid's eyes were safe for the moment, unfortunately, as it was apparently wise enough to put one of its claws in front of its face, blocking the first of Ruby's shots, while the other tried to chip away the ice on its legs. A booming screech from the north preceded a volley of giant pinions flying straight towards them bringing the supposed accuracy contest to an end

The massive darts were blocked as an array of staggered amber star barriers appeared in their path. "Had anyone else heard of Nevermores being able to regenerate?" He heard Umber grouse while she almost casually wrapped the carry line Ruby had shaken herself loose from into a tight coil and tucked it into the pouch at the small of her back.

"Well they do launch all those feathers..." The little reaper offered.

"Guys that thing is circling back around!" He had to wince a bit at how nervous his voice sounded.

"Right next time I take one for a ride I will make sure it's dead in the air." The enchantress sighed and glanced towards the temple. "So those are the relics? Anyone else in favor of completing our objective here and making a tactical retreat?"

"She's right, our mission is to grab an artifact and make it back to the cliffs." Ruby confirmed while pointing over her shoulder. "There's no point in fighting these things."

"Run and live." Jaune grinned. "that's an idea I can get behind."

Suiting actions to words he and Ruby entered the ruined temple and grabbed artifacts for their pairs. As he picked up the golden rook he gave the girl a smile as she picked up the knight. The young man really hoped his inner turmoil didn't show on his face, much as he would wish he could be the heroic knight he had to admit that she was much more suited to the role so far. As they started to run back to the cliffs and safety he just couldn't stop the recriminations running just as fast through his mind.

Some hero he was shaping up to be so far. Even worse after he was saved by the girls he was just relieved that he hadn't been the first to suggest retreating. At the very least his training with the track team at his junior high, the only training aside from dancing with his sisters he could sneak past his dad, allowed him to keep up with or even outrun some of the others. The flyer still passed them and they were forced to take cover in the ruins of what probably had been a causeway. Only for the Deathstalker? to catch up with them forcing him to call out a warning for the others to run.

He sighed as he saw the only other guy there, Ren?, shout for the ginger girl, Nora?, to distract the giant raven Grimm. Without a trace of hesitation the girl vaulted over and around a volley of pinions only to turn and launch a responding volleys of RPGs to drive the monster off. 

Running on it seemed moments later he watched Umber fly in from behind carrying Nora in front of her, the smaller girl gripping her arms over her forearms. Glancing back he found the scorpion again temporarily bound by ice. Jaune could only lament that it seemed his life was destined to be surrounded and overshadowed by women of impressive power.

They reached the bridge as a group with Pyrrha in the lead. The champion dropped to one knee calling for the others to go on and bringing her weapon, now transformed into a rifle, up to cover their rear. Hearing gunshots from others joining her Jaune felt even more chagrined as he lead the pack across the bridge, only glancing back when a horrible shriek announced the white masked monster flying through the bridge behind them.

Looking back across the chasm Jaune was horrified to see three of the four gunners in their small group trapped on the small section of bridge remaining against the cliff and any escape blocked by the giant scorpion Grimm that had freed itself again. "Hey we've got to get over there! They need help."

"Let's do this." He glanced over his left shoulder to see the ginger girl give an emphatic nod.

Jaune glanced nervously at the jagged remains of the bridge in front of him. "Yah... I can't make that jump." He shuddered slightly as the girl gave an evil chuckle before swinging her heavy rocket launcher and knocking him further away from the gap. He felt a growing sense of dread as she continued swinging the weapon around and it transformed into a giant battle hammer. "No wait." He either wasn't heard or the girl chose to ignore his protests as she swung back towards him and slammed her hammer into the end of the bridge with an explosive laced bash catapulting him across the chasm "No! No."

His yell was drowned out by the girl's laugh as with another pull of the trigger her hammer blasted her over the chasm as well, spinning in midair she brought the hammer head down on the scorpion's head. "Nora Smash!" The attack pushed the creature down slightly but seemed to have very little other effect. As Jaune rolled through his own landing he witnessed the creature prepare to strike with its tail, the hammer nut blasted herself to safety with the unfortunate side effect of knocking the black haired girl off the bridge.

Getting to his feet he was relieved to see the girl swinging through the pillar supports using the apparently very stretchy ribbon that had been wrapped around her arm. The four of them remaining on the near side of the chasm regrouped at the far end of the remaining bridge section with a path to the relative safety of the forest floor blocked by the giant bug. 

For a few moments neither side made a move, the creature was too large to fit on the bridge with them, and they had yet to come up with a strategy to disable the creature or escape. The stalemate was broken as the deathstalker used its bulbous stinger to break loose the side of the bridge still attached to the valley causing the whole structure to rock and sway dangerously. 

"We've gotta move!" His announcement prompted the others to action. Pyrrha led the charge blocking the pincher on their left with her shield and parrying a blow from the other with her sword. The creature's recovery was faster than the champion's and Jaune rushed in to block the returning slash from the right with his shield. For a moment his vision seemed to blur.

Survival is the greatest glory Life can hope to achieve, but there is no glory for the individual to survive with the price paid solely by others. You have been judged worthy to bear this shard of light.

While he had been distracted by the strange phrase echoing in his head the other young man had jumped up on the creature's tail and was shooting the base of the stinger with one of his machine guns.

The scorpion brought its pincer around again. This time he and Pyrrha both blocked with their shields and they were both knocked back. However he didn't slide nearly as far nor did he feel a shock like he had before, looking ahead he noticed a sky blue glow emanating from his shield. 

Pyrrha recovered faster than he could launching her javelin form weapon into the creature's largest eye on their left. The creature reared back in pain, flinging its tail and dislodging Ren, who flew off into one of the ruined causeway's remaining walls. Nora's call of concern for her friend barely registered to Jaune as he saw the stinger barely holding on.

The feel of the sword in his right hand changed, it grew warmer before roiling yellow fire flowed out from the blade taking the form of a great sword. Acting on instinct he swung the blade and an arc of liquid light flowed from it. The dark flesh of the Grimm's tail disappearing like smoke in the wake of its passing freed the stinger to drop on top of the creature's thorax.

He turned to see the girls looking as stunned as he felt inside, but Jaune realized it wasn't enough by itself. He had to grin as he gave the ginger girl an instruction he was sure she would enjoy. "Nora! Nail it!"

"Heads up!" The bubbly girl cheered to the other girl, who automatically crouched down with her shield braced over her head. The hammer landed on the shield first followed by the giggling girl crouching on it. With almost perfectly synced timing the hammer exploded and Pyrrha leaped into the air, with a net result of Nora flying high above the flailing monster. She chuckled as she fired the hammer again sending her into a spinning fall that ended in another explosive smash driving the stinger through the creature's exoskeleton. The force was great enough that it drove the creature through the bridge pier and catapulted Jaune and Pyrrha past the creature.

The champion's spear returned to her hand, transforming into a sword mid flight, allowing her to finish in an elegant ready crouch. Nora blasted in and rolled to her feet, while Jaune only managed a rather fumbling shoulder roll, careful to keep the newly dangerous family heirloom away from his body, that ended with him flat on his back. He was quickly back on his feet and turning to watch the other quartet in the middle of the chasm trying to fight off the nightmare bird.

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Watching the blonde brawler standing alone on the tallest remaining pillar of what had once been a great building she felt very small and helpless, which she hated. When Ruby had detailed her plan, and asked her sister to act as bait to draw the Nevermore in, the fighter had agreed with a smile. She had made this mess for them and yet she only had the courage to try dealing with the bird directly when she and Ruby had caught it sleeping in its nest.

Umber held her breath as after launching repeated blasts from her gauntlets, one enraging the creature as it struck home in its eye, Yang leaped without hesitation into the Nevermore's mouth. She could only imagine the taunt the other girl was shouting as she forced the giant beak open with one arm and her legs while firing shots directly down the monster's throat.

The attack succeeded in stunning the creature and Yang jumped free onto the remains of the central platform of the bridge while the monstrosity crashed into the cliff side. It landed much more gently than she would have expected but even before it could try to take flight again her rockets were flying towards it. 

The Nevermore tried to take to the air again, but the rockets struck first creating a wedge of ice sticking the creature's tail to the cliff side. Umber tracked Ruby as she jumped with Crescent Rose on top of the black ribbon Yang and her partner stretched between two pillars. Her part started with the extra ribbon with the gravity spell, and about a half kilometer of thread connecting back to her, that she had slipped into the top of each of Ruby's boots. Umber activated those now and pulled the young reaper back to her. "Your plan is a little crazy, but incredible if you can pull it off."

"As long as you can make the shot, we'll be fine." The cutely dangerous lolita grinned.

"Sorry about this Ruby." Umber sighed while stepping around to better line up their improvised slingshot with the giant bird. "Next time we catch one of these sleeping I will just kill it instead of playing with it."

"Not your fault. I didn't even have a plan to take it down before we jumped." She could only shake her head at the unquestioning positivity from her partner.

"Ready?" Umber used another ribbon to create a barrier in front of herself to protect from the blast about to come from Crescent Rose as well as her own contribution. When the little reaper nodded Umber used another spell ribbon floating between her barrier and Ruby to create a blast of wind, and released the gravity ribbon's grip, boosting the launch from the slingshot sending the little girl, and her giant scythe, sailing across the chasm. 

Umber felt like laughing at the evil bird's indignant squawk when the scythe hooked it by the throat, but as her partner neared the wall she turned her concentration to synchronizing the gravity ribbon's adhesion to the wall with Ruby's quick steps as she ran up the vertical incline propelled by more blasts from the high impact sniper-scythe.

She felt nothing but relief as the monster's head came away from its body, but when even the wind conspired to help the little red reaper cut an impressive figure at the top of the cliff she would admit to feeling a small bit of awe.

"Well that was a thing." Umber had to chuckle, Yang could definitely be relied on to bring moments back to levity, but while Ruby was safely back to the top of the cliffs they still had to deal with getting themselves and the four on the far side back to the top as well. 

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Jaune let out a sigh of relief seeing that their friends? well they had worked together so he hoped he could call them that, managed to defeat the flying Grimm. He could make out a building built into the cliff on the far side of the chasm and looking into the shadowed recesses past the entrance he would wager that they would find stairs leading to the top of the cliffs inside. Luckily there was an intact bridge leading from the central platform the trio of girls were standing on leading right up to it. Now the group he was with were left with the problem of how to make it to that platform since the bridge from their side was destroyed in the fight earlier.

“So who’s ready to fly Air Nora?!” Jaune glanced to the side to find the girl standing with one foot on the back of her rocket launcher hammer with a big grin and he couldn’t help the nervous chuckle that escaped his lips. 

Looking over at Ren he was somewhat relieved to see that the other boy was trying to discreetly warn he and his partner from taking the girl up on the offer. Unfortunately there was only one polite way Jaune could think of to decline. “Sorry Nora but with the way Ren was knocked around there at the end I think we need to find a bit smoother way to make it across.”

Turning to the redhead that was giving him a suspiciously innocent smile he sighed. “Could you ask Umber if she has a rope long enough to run between the colonnade over there and one of the remaining columns over there on the platform so we can use it as a zip line?”

Pyrrha grinned wider at him before calling out to the other girls across the chasm. “Would you care to string us a line Umber?”

“Hey she speaks my language!” Jaune could see Ruby slump and hold her head in her hands at hearing her older sister’s laughing response. Umber was chuckling herself as she jumped off the ledge and kicked on her thrusters to fly back across the chasm and up one of the columns on the side of the ruined causeway to wrap a rope around it before flying back to the platform to wrap the carry line she had made for Ruby around the column on that side and run the rope through the carabiner so Yang could pull on it to both lower the rope for them to be able to grab ahold of and tighten it up enough that they could slide down to the platform.

So with a bit of teamwork, various much needed laughs, and using improvised slides to hang from they were quickly over the gap left by the fallen bridge. Umber gathered up the ropes and materials and waved as she flew up to join her partner at the top of the cliff.

Pyrrha paused in scanning with her weapon in rifle form to ask him a question as they walked towards the safety of the cliffs. “So why didn’t you ask Umber to do that yourself?”

“I was guessing that she would be more likely to understand what we were intending if she heard your voice.” Jaune paused in trying to stretch a kink out of his shoulders, and ended up rubbing the back of his neck, before he turned to look at her. “I know from it is easier to understand a voice you’re more familiar with.”

“No other reason?” Pyrrha asked with mild curiosity.

“I wouldn’t want to assume too much, I already feel like I stumbled into the plot of one of my little sister’s favorite manga.” He finished with a sigh.

“What story would that be Mister Fox?” Jaune could only stare at her in a mix of humor and amazement. The way she had stretched out mister was obscenely adorable like a child that had misunderstood mysterious and was tripping over trying to repeat it, the humor was that he would expect it from his little sisters, the amazement being that such an otherwise professional and put together young woman would.

Well if he imagined he was talking with one of his sisters maybe he could handle this. “Pyrrha the camping trip when we were kids that I met you and Umber at before must have meant a great deal to you.” Jaune turned and started walking again while he tried to gather his thoughts. “I have to be honest, camping is what I my family does for vacation and what I remember of it is mixed with the memories of all the other trips I went on with them.”

He turned to look at her again as they entered the shade of the cliffside building, he wouldn’t have been surprised if she was offended or angry at his revelation instead he found her simply giving him a sad smile and an understanding nod. “I am not very surprised, it was special to me because of getting to be one of a group of girls where that would be the norm with all of your sisters.” Pyrrha extended her right hand to him, and reached past his hand to grasp his forearm when he moved to extend his own. “I’m fine with making new memories as friends and partners if you are.” Jaune relaxed as they continued walking and followed the others to find the stairs within the building.

“So….” Pyrrha stretched the word out as they began following the others up the stairs. “What series came to mind for you Jaune?”

“A blonde haired young man setting out to become a huntsman finds himself caught between several young women. Most notably another blonde and a redhead.” Jaune sighed as her grin grew with every word. “So the Lion of Macedon.”

“That’s a fairly popular series in Mistral.” Pyrrha could barely restrain a laugh. “So if you fancy yourself to be Leandre does that make me Cinnabar and Umber is Melina?” She climbed a few more steps. “No that wouldn’t work Cinnabar is the would be fiance that refused to consider marriage to Leandre unless he became a Huntsman and Melina became his partner at the academy.”

“Cinnabar was also a merchant’s daughter who didn’t want to marry into a noble family, and Melina was a caster.” Jaune helpfully added to the conversation as they climbed. “So I guess we don’t really fit the profile. There was always a joke going around my house that a lot of the stories were based on my parents misadventures.” Jaune chuckled at the thought. “My mom Lily and my dad were partners at the academy and Umber’s Aunt Iris, my stepmom, was his fiance.”

“Sounds like an interesting hidden history for the series.” The redhead encouraged him. “Care to tell?”

“Not a whole lot to tell.” Jaune shrugged in response as they continued climbing the stairs the voices of the other teens ahead of them muffled by the twists as they ascended. “The marriage was arranged by my grandfather for the younger of his two sons, but before my father graduated from Beacon both his father and older brother had been killed in the line of duty as Huntsmen. My Mama Iris encouraged my dad to abuse some of the old laws still on the books and conspired with Mama Lily to give him the large family he wanted to lessen the risk of our family might die out.”

“That sounds sweet really.” Pyrrha allowed as they started to see the top of the stairs. “The hidden history I have heard for the story is that Cinnabar and Melina were childhood friends, and Cinnabar set the requirement for Leandre to become a huntsman because she really did not want to be caught up in a political marriage. When the young nobleman took it as a challenge to prove his worth, instead of folding, it took them both by surprise, so Melina volunteered to look after the foolish, idealistic young man and make sure he didn’t get himself killed.”

“That really doesn’t sound all that secret.” Jaune paused at the top of the stairs. “Wasn’t that pretty much the plot of the story?”

“That’s the trick.” Pyrrha grinned mischievously. “They make out in the story that Melina was always teasing and trying to seduce Leandre, but really she was hoping to keep him from succeeding so that he couldn’t take Cinnabar away from her. In the end he won her friendship.”

“That is quite a twist.” Jaune coughed into his hand to hide the rising blush at that revelation. “I think it’s safe to say we don’t fit the pattern then, unless you are hiding being a caster?”

“Hard to say since it’s only a fantasy story.” Pyrrha leaned forward and looked up at him with a grin. Between one blink and the next her eyes went from bright green, to the same shade of cobalt blue as his sisters, and then back again on the next blink. “I do know a few tricks however.” Her giggles at his reaction seemed to follow him all the way back to the school.

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"Jaune Arc, Lie Ren, Pyrrha Nikos, and Nora Valkyrie." Umber's ears perked up as she heard the names of her two friends, and for the first time the full names of the oddly matched pair from the forest. "The four of you retrieved the white rook pieces. From this day forward you will work together as team JNPR." She was almost certain she saw the stoic boy blush a little as the bubbly girl hugged him. "Led by Jaune Arc!" The grin Pyrrha sent his way was the most honest she had seen on her friend's face since they met again at Beacon.

"Led by..." Umber could only smile at the disbelief and awe in his voice as he repeated those words.

"Congratulations young man, if you would please come by my office after the assembly there is something I need to discuss." The headmaster's words gained a nod in response, right before the champion fighter punched him playfully in the shoulder and knocked the dumbstruck boy from his feet earning a few laughs.

"And finally Blake Belladonna," Pyrrha was offering Jaune a hand up when the name made her turn slightly and lock eyes with Umber. The enchantress shook her head negatively. "Ruby Rose," Knowing her name was coming she took off her hat and let her illusions fade. "Umber Schnee," She was fairly certain the raven haired girl glanced back at her for just a second as she lead the way to the stage, she would only find that her appearance matched the white haired and fox eared image on the telescreen. "and Yang Xiao Long. The four of you retrieved the white knight pieces. From this day forward you shall work together as team RUBY lead by Ruby Rose."

"I'm so proud of you!" Umber smiled a little as Yang leaped past her to hug Ruby.

She wished she could join in on congratulating her partner, but needed to take the opportunity to deal with something else. She leaned over to whisper into their last teammate's prominent bow. "We need to have a talk Belladonna-ojo, Faunus to Faunus."

"Things are shaping up to be an interesting year." The headmaster's final quiet comment sounded almost like a lament.

#######

So trying to get back into this story again, please let me know what you think.


	3. Burdens

He really needs to remember to not enter his Scroll lock code where others can see. She still smiled at the thought even as she used the code she memorized to unlock the device in question while walking into the bathroom carrying her discarded skirt to run a brush through the tangles in her hair.

With her hair down and everything brushed to the left side the long bang she normally let hang down the right side of her face disappeared into the rest of her hair. Thanks to that, and the veil Umber made for her giving her blond hair and brown eyes, she doubted anyone from Atlas would recognize her if she walked past them on the street.

Spending an afternoon and night in the company of a man that she would only dare act standoffish towards otherwise only helped reinforce the idea that Solstice Shade was someone else entirely. A nice side benefit for an intelligence agent's alternate identity.

It had only taken a handwritten letter with her new name and scroll number dropped in the mail to Patch once she arrived in Vale, and he had called her the next day. Thanks to the favor Joan had asked it became necessary for Umber to ride on a certain airship to Beacon, all too conveniently he decided to take his nieces out for breakfast before sending them off also and the restaurant just so happened to be close to the same transit hub.

Dust she was happy Joan hadn't been there to see her little brother off. She really did not want to explain to her new friend/contact why she would meet up with and leave with a teacher from one of the local combat schools.

Grabbing a plastic wrapped piece of paper she had bought on the mall on a whim out of the medicine cabinet she opened the package and applied the printed side of the paper to her hip where he liked to lay his hand if she leaned in close to him. She had to stifle a giggle, before a few weeks ago in her life she had never had a reason to make a personal hunter's symbol. The one she decided to make was a simple scene of a golden sun barely peeking up between two snow capped mountains, it worked for both her new alias as well as her own name.

He always claimed he was a bad luck charm, but it worked out strangely for her. His bad luck had only ever succeeded in getting them stuck in places where the only things to do to pass the time were to listen to his wealth of stories about his travels, unless she found more interesting ways to make him stop talking. 

The downtime and the, likely grown larger in the telling, stories about the world were actually a nice distraction for how regimented her life was even before she joined the military. The tales only served to remind her of how little of the world she had experienced so far and how much more she would like to see.

She had sent him a picture of her new sigil and told him to look for that after the teens were all safely on their way to Beacon. When he walked up to her he had quietly whispered in her ear that he wouldn't have needed to see it to recognize her. 

She had been pleasantly surprised that rather than taking her to some dive bar he took her to lunch at a nice jazz club that had a full kitchen. Where in the dark booth he opened his shirt to reveal that he had tattooed her new sigil over his heart on his left shoulder, right where she liked to lay her head....sometimes.

Peeling the paper off her hip she smirked at the image left behind in the dressing mirror. Stepping into her skirt she pulled it up so it was barely hanging off her hips. Holding up the borrowed Scroll she tried to, but likely failed, to put on an innocent smile as she snapped a picture of herself and the reflection in the mirror.

Letting the skirt drop she definitely had a naughty smirk on her face as she snapped another picture.

Going back to her bedroom she pulled on a long shirt over her underwear and sighed as she slipped the Scroll back into the pocket of his discarded vest. Getting back under the covers she curled up against him and settled back to nap for the couple of hours she had left before she would have to kick him out of her bed and wash the sheets, it wouldn't do to have her little sister come by and wonder why they smelled of alcohol, before she had catch a commuter flight back to Vytal where she had left her airship and take on the mantle of Atlas Military Specialist again.

If she was really lucky he would find the second picture just as he tried to take a swig of whatever the rotgut he kept in that flask was.

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Stepping out of the assembly hall the grey haired man sighed deeply and took a sip from his coffee cup, the rich brew reinvigorating his spirits against the cool spring evening air. “So a fine showing from the group that faced initiation this year don’t you think Glynda?”

“Forty-five students added to the Field Operations and Support classes, including eight who originally applied for the Huntsmen training course but changed their minds when they were called to the cliffs.” The blond haired woman stepped up to walk beside him as they made their way back to the central tower and his office. “Of the twenty who went through the initiation three new teams were formed, seven failed the exam and had to be extracted, all but two of whom have withdrawn from the academy after signing non disclosure agreements, and one that we still have to decide what to do with since she completed the assigned task but found neither a partner nor joined a team.”

“Yes you mentioned that she actually avoided meeting several other candidate’s eyes?” He sighed as his deputy administrator nodded. “Well there should be someone waiting for us at my office that can help us straighten that situation out, though we may have to call in that favor with General Ironwood.”

“Then before we reach your office perhaps you can share with me why you were wearing such a satisfied smirk when team JNPR was formed?” He couldn’t help but grin a bit at her question.

“Oh weren’t you the one to recommend Mr. Arc be the leader after reviewing the footage?” He questioned mildly while continuing at a modest pace. “I recall our longest discussion with the other professors was my recommendation of Ms. Rose for leader of team RUBY.”

“I only pointed out that the others followed his lead easily and that he did….” She paused like she was loath to have to restate her reasoning. “have the best situational awareness of all the group involved in fighting those Grimm.”

“Yes I would have to agree.” He tried his best to hide his grin at her annoyance behind taking another drink.

“Now would you care to share with me what you knew about the situation that I missed?” Her annoyance was starting to show in her voice, a more clipped manner of speaking that most others might have missed. “There was nothing in their transcripts to suggest they would mesh so well.”

“It really isn’t a large secret.” He tried to give her his best reassuring smile as they walked into the brightly lit courtyard area around the tower. By her expression it did not work as well as he could have hoped. “Just a minor oddity on several of the applicants’ medical release forms, specifically under emergency contact.”

“The medical release forms?” With practiced ease he kept from laughing at her surprise as she spread out the black tablet in her hands and quickly pulled up the forms for their newly formed teams. After several moments she sighed. “Four students all list the same young woman’s name with a relationship of cousin and or Guardian Advocate? What exactly is that?” 

“You’re aware that Mistral has much more lax laws about the practice of using child labor then Vale?” Seeing her nod he continued. “When I saw the term I had to actually call up Professor Lionheart at Haven for an explanation. Apparently it is one that the Victor Trading Company coined to give a legal definition and status to members of their organization that either volunteered or were assigned to check up on the welfare of youngsters that came to their company and were willing to work. A sort of internal big brother or sister program to have someone not a direct supervisor in the course of the children’s work to ensure they were not simply being exploited.”

“So then Ms Arc used that position to influence these four to come to Beacon and support her brother?” The coldness in her voice made it more then clear what she thought of the possibility as they walked down the path.

“I don’t believe there was as clear a retainer relationship here as what was arranged for Mr Winchester no.” He allowed as they walked into the open area around the tower. “I looked into it myself and it appears that Joan sponsored Mr. Ren and Ms. Valkyrie to be able to test to join their age group, instead of having to start from the beginning, at Siren Academy when they immigrated to Vale two years ago. I believe some loyalty might have played a factor, but it was not a prime motivation. I believe that since she had experience with the roll that Ms Nikos and Ms Shade’s parents asked her to be a local contact and look after their welfare.”

“What made her think that he would have a chance of one of the two girls wanting to be his partner if the others were already clearly a pair?” 

“Professor Lionheart forwarded this to me.” His widening grin at discussing the two girls must have given him away. He chuckled as he pulled out his own tablet and brought up a file for a graphic novel. “This is a special edition that was set to be released tomorrow in Mistral and republished here in Vale by the end of the week. He was hoping I could show this to the Vale council and see if they would give their support to the newly planned publication.”

“While the Mistral Council’s efforts to promote a favored son of the upper class has had a beneficial side effect of inspiring more young people to train to become Huntsmen there as well as other kingdoms.” Even just looking at the filename made the female professor’s lips draw into a thin line. “I do not see how ‘The Lion of Macedon: A new generation’s adventure starts’ would be pertinent to our discussion nor matter to the Council of Vale.”

“I think rather than a sense of loyalty Ms Arc was more counting on what this is based on to motivate one or the other of her new charges to try and secure Mr Arc as their partner.” He chuckled as he opened the file to show her the cover page which was styled to look like a feminine hand was holding up a Scroll to take a picture, which just happened to be of two young girls holding a blushing similarly aged blond boy between them while they both gave him a kiss on the cheek. That one girl was a blond with clearly visible fox ears and the other a redhead made it clear that the picture and likely the story within the rest of the pages was inspired by the group they had just been discussing.

“Why would they reveal that one of the characters in the story has been a Faunus all along?” She pinched the bridge of her nose and adjusted her glasses before continuing. “And again why would the Council of Vale be interested?”

“For your first question that is a contest of wills I would rather stay away from.” He quickly scrolled through the document to the last page. “The Vale Council and Beacon would be interested because the lead character in the as yet unnamed new series is based on one, or several, of our alumni, a Miss Jeanne D’Arc.”

“Just by the name I would guess they were going to be combining Joan, Jane, and Jean into the same character, but are they trying to highlight it with that headpiece?” The blond combat instructor was trying somewhat successfully to stifle chuckles behind her hand as she looked at the picture of a blond haired young woman, wearing a very ornamental looking face guard, holding up a Scroll and asking if the hero deserves a reward. After regaining some composure she managed to finally take in the rest of the picture. “That armor looks very familiar, though I do not recall any of the sisters wearing it in my class.”

“Professor Lionheart joked with me that the next issue would have one of the previous generation’s characters giving Ms. D’Arc an object lesson in why she should not wear armor designed for a boy in the future.” He closed the tablet back up and slipped it inside his jacket pocket, as the security doors to the tower opened he gave her a conspiratorial grin. “Perhaps it will make an interesting read for you?”

“Yes please ask, I will get back to you soon as to if it is a definite issue.” As they walked into the large round lobby they found a white haired young woman standing beside the main elevator having a quiet conversation with her scroll up against her ear, she ended the discussion as she saw them and quickly put away her scroll. “Good evening Headmaster, Professor.”

“Specialist Schnee, thank you and please send along my gratitude to General Ironwood for being available so quickly this evening.” He nodded to the young woman and pressed the call button for the elevator. “I am afraid we have a delicate situation on our hands that you personally could be quite helpful in resolving.”

“It is a welcome change from the management of garrison training that I have spent the last month doing.” He noticed an almost imperceptible smirk from Glynda at the response, but it quickly disappeared as he gestured for both women to proceed him into the opening elevator doors. “I doubt this has anything to do with the press release my father just sent out?”

He nodded in confirmation of the young woman’s question as he held his scroll in front of the control panel and the button for his office became active. “That is a political concern between Atlas and Mistral, we have another issue to discuss.”

“If I may Headmaster Ozpin?” He nodded for Winter to continue. “I was listening to the announcement of the new teams over the campus public address system and I did not hear Weiss’ name mentioned.” 

“Yes very perceptive I am afraid.” He opened his scroll back up and began to move to open a new file when the blond haired teacher put a hand on his arm.

“Before we get into a heavy discussion could you forward a copy of that story to me Ozpin?” She brought her hand up to seemingly adjust her glasses but he felt certain it was to hide the grin on her face. “It might make an interesting read indeed.”

With a shrug he brought up the file and prepared to attach it in a message with the thumbnail showing the last opened page. “Is that supposed to be Joan?” He paused and both of the teachers turned to look in surprise at Winter’s exclamation.

The combat instructor was the first to respond. “I did not realize you had met Ms Arc?” 

“Due to the situation with Umber.” Winter for her part maintained her composure under their gaze. “Since she isn’t a blood relative and could be considered a neutral third party she came by Atlas Academy several times over the last few years to ensure that Umber was being treated reasonably.” The specialist straightened her uniform slightly. “I was given the task of being the intermediary as the general thought it best if she did not meet with Umber directly. Though I don’t believe much time would need to be spent in her presence to recognize the three prong face and forehead protector she likes to wear.”

“I assumed that was something stylistic the artist had added.” Both teachers look at the picture on his tablet, noting the headpiece with embossed multibloom larkspur stalks going down a curved plate on each side of the girl’s face and over the bridge of her nose before Ozpin continued. “That must be something she started wearing after her internship began in Mistral.” He glanced back up at the young woman. “Would you care for a copy of this… since it involves your youngest sister as well?”

“If you wouldn’t mind Headmaster.” The slight grin his co worker was wearing seemed to mirror his thoughts as he added a recipient to the message, one does not collect teasing material on a casual acquaintance.

“Well if that is sorted shall we see to the business at hand?” He kept the amusement out of his voice but it was a struggle. “So as you might have guessed Specialist your sister Weiss was able to complete the stated objective during the initiation this morning but did not find a partner or become part of a team. Now we are left with the problem that traditionally Huntsmen and Huntresses are trained in teams of four.” He paused to take a drink to let this sink in, “While it would not be impossible to place her in a team it would most likely require forming one for her…”

“Since she is the heiress of one of the most prominent companies in the world.” Winter picked up his train of thought. “You would rather not give the impression of showing special favoritism.”

“Our first thought was to have her be an exchange student at one of the other academies, but I assume she chose Beacon for a reason.” He paused to focus his gaze directly on Winter. “Perhaps you might be able to offer some insight and suggestions.” 

“There is one possibility I considered out of the question before,” Winter put her hand on her chin and watched the floor buttons light up for a moment. “But given Beacon’s much warmer relationship with this organization I think it would help Weiss learn about the world at large and interkingdom commerce.”

“As compared to your father and consequently the Atlas Council’s frosty relations over the last few years?” He quirked an eyebrow at the young woman. “We have had arrangements with the VTC and their merchant marine division to help some of our alumni with gaining international experience. Do you believe that your sister would be eager to intern with them given the poor relations with your father?”

“I can think of no better way to try and repair those relationships for the future of the SDC. Plus it would give Weiss the chance to train with those who taught Pyrrha Nikos, who I understand she admires a great deal.” Winter paused as the doors began to open and she was treated to the sight of her younger sister wearing a rather weak smile while being regaled with a story by a rather plump white haired man in a maroon suit. “That it would likely annoy father is simply icing on the cake.”

“It does sound like a…” He stepped out of the elevator to allow the women into the office. “Viable solution if Weiss is willing.” Ozpin turned and strode quickly towards his desk and the pair there, 

Winter was delayed by Glynda putting a hand on her arm. “Are you a fan of Jazz Ms. Schnee?” 

“I’m familiar with the genre, but not a avid listener.” The older woman’s question caught her off guard but she tried not to let it show.

“I see.” The teacher trailed off in a way that made Winter wonder what the point of the question was. “If you were a fan I was going to suggest visiting The Blue Note before you leave Vale. I have found it a fine place to sit and relax. I have frequented it enough that some of the hostesses even share gossip with me.” She handed her a note written in very neat lettering “It wouldn’t be of any importance to you, but if you did visit there at some point I would recommend this brand of shampoo to help prevent the...atmosphere of the place from lingering.”

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What on Remnant is going on!!!

Absolutely nothing had gone the way she had planned today!

After missing the Mistrali Champion by mere moments the first day every time she had tried to catch her, she had finally managed to be able to talk to the other girl.   
Being the champion and in the spotlight had done wonders for the other girl’s etiquette and grace. Not to mention the upgrade in class of her combat attire, her first time in the Mistral Regional Pyrrha had worn leather pants, knee high boots, and a military style flak vest calling it her ruin explorer outfit. 

All together the champion seemed almost totally different from the shy girl she could hardly get to speak a word to her during the intermission of the charity concert she had performed at in Mistral. Sadly the other girl had been called away before the end of the concert so she hadn’t been able to try speaking to her again.

Her conversation had been going so well with Pyrrha until that blond goof had butted in. Couldn’t he tell an important conversation was happening, and plans were being made!

How could he begin to believe her calling him scraggly during her conversation with that little dunce was admiration. She didn’t have the energy to even shout about it mentally anymore, the long story this professor...Port was it?, droned on with, and had been since he escorted her to the Headmaster’s office, was sapping her will.

She would not have even mentioned the boy in the conversation at all if she hadn’t seen him walking into the assembly hall with that walking safety hazard. She definitely felt like fate was playing a cruel joke when she had happened to almost meet eyes with him during initiation. Fortunately she allowed her eyes to look no higher than the sneakers he had written right and left on the soles of before walking off.

From there she had wandered in the forest without actually meeting anyone else, that hadn’t already teamed up. She knew quite well how to follow a map and use a compass, but how was she supposed to know she wouldn’t be allowed to take her Scroll with her. The idea that moss grows on the north side of trees would have been helpful except for there being enough darkness and moisture in the Emerald Forest that there was moss growing everywhere.

The noise of fighting had drawn her to the ruined causeway, and after watching Pyrrha run by with that boy Jaune, Ruby, and her boisterous sister among others, had been able to follow the abandoned road back to the temple ruins claiming the white queen piece for herself. 

Making a temporary bridge out of ice had been easy for her once she made it back to the cliffs, she had to wonder how the others she had seen managed. This professor was waiting for her when she made it to the top of the cliffs and had politely asked her to come with him, however long ago that was.

Now there was a true ray of hope for the situation as she watched Headmaster Ozpin exit the elevator followed shortly by Professor Goodwitch, and Winter! It took all of her control not to jump up from her chair and run to her older sister.

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After the fanfare welcoming the new teams to the school faded the task of hauling luggage to their newly assigned rooms started. Umber was surprised to find a trolley cart stacked with a half dozen hard cases of Dust had been left tagged for her along with her one rolling footlocker trunk at the entrance to the dorm. 

Since they were the last teams to be announced it also seemed they were the last to get there, and only their bags were left under the watchful eyes of some of the older students in uniform. While she was pleased at the implication she was left with the issue of having to carry all of them upstairs since the dorm building lacked an elevator. 

"I have to go see what Professor Ozpin wanted to talk about." Umber swore she saw Jaune smirk as he grabbed his own bag and quickly headed up to his team's room. He missed that there was an extra bag tagged with his name, she definitely was smirking herself as she thought about the surprise that would make for later.

"Yo!" The familiar deep but feminine voice caused her to turn and find Coco along with two older boys and another brunette girl with cute rabbit ears. "Ozpin asked me to bring those from storage for you again, but I thought you and your friends might need some help moving in so I went and grabbed my team. I thought we could make it an official welcome to Beacon party!" The older girl threw an arm over her shoulder and whispered conspiratorially. "Any chance we can start things off with using the catalog cutie for dress up? He was the model you were hinting at yesterday right."

"Who's your friend Umber?" She could tell from Pyrrha's tone that her old friend was just a little miffed at how close the older girl assumed she could be.

"This is Coco Adel, she helped me out with something yesterday and offered to tutor me on clothing design." The enchantress explained before slipping out from under her arm, whispering as she did. “If by ‘Catalog Cutie’ you mean Jaune, he slipped away to a convenient appointment, but we might be able to ambush him later." She continued in a more normal tone as she pointed at the redhead. "Coco this is my good friend Pyrrha Nikos, and her teammates Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie." The girls nodded and waved in turn, while the boy gave a formal bow. 

"I believe you saw two of our team yesterday. This is my partner and team leader Ruby Rose." Umber stepped over to her partner and slipped her arms over the girl's shoulders in a quick hug, causing a cute blushing squeak, then nodded with a wink to the smirking blond and the quiet midnight beauty. "These are our teammates, Ruby's sister Yang Xiao Long and finally her partner Blake Belladonna." The last two girls waved as she gave their names, but the disguised Faunus looked like she was trying to find a way to escape. "I haven't met your teammates yet so would you mind introducing them?"

"This is my partner Fox Alastair." Coco grinned as she strutted over to stand between the dark skinned young man and the female Faunus. Leaning against him with her right elbow on his shoulder she put her other arm around the girl's shoulders. "This is my best buddy Velvet Scarletina." With a nod of her head behind her she finished. "The quiet mountain behind us is her partner Yatsuhashi Daichi."

The boys were apparently used to her manner of speaking, only rolling their eyes and smiling, but the smaller girl was blushing at the attention. "So if you want to lead the way to your rooms, we'll lend a hand with the luggage." Without further prompting the two older boys grabbed four of the hard cases, Coco and Velvet each grabbed one leaving Umber and the others with just their original bags to handle. Pyrrha grabbed the leftover with Jaune’s nametag. 

"Thank you Coco!" Ruby gushed as she lead the way up the stairs. Umber smiled in gratitude at the fashionista and received a wink in return. Three flights of stairs later they found their rooms across from each other. 

"I call the bed against the left wall." Ruby's proclamation just earned a grin from her sister and a nod from Umber. Yet with all of team RUBY's baggage placed in the room a space issue became clear quite quickly, there was none to walk between the beds.

"This is a bit," The black haired girl paused while she searched for the right words. "cramped."

"Well we could ditch some of our stuff." Yang looked a little pointedly at Umber while saying this.

Her partner quickly came to her rescue. "Or we could ditch the beds and replace them with bunk beds!"

"That sounds awesome!" The team’s blond cheered eagerly.

"It does seem efficient." The quiet confirmation of interest from Blake made Umber sigh in relief.

Umber reached into her pouch and took out a narrow ribbon that unrolled itself revealing a fabric tape measure, which floated over top one of the square legs sticking up from the head and foot boards. "If we had some scrap wood to use as spacers I have a way of securing them."

“Wait my dad used to hang a heavy bag for training in his team’s room.” Yang quickly started fishing through her her bag and came up it a toolkit. “I have a some eye bolts if you have more of that nylon strap and carabiners.” 

“Do you happen to have a stud finder in there.” Umber asked as she looked with some concern at the ceiling.

Yang leaned back and made a show of looking out the door at the three boys that were part of their group for the time being. “My eyes are working just fine thank you for asking.”

“Yaaannngg!!!” Umber could only sigh at having given the other girl such an opening as Ruby gave an embarrassed wail.

“Yes you have excellent observation skills I will agree.” Umber grinned as she decided to see if the brawler could take as good as she gives. “It still does not address the need of safely screwing in those stiff rods you were interested in making use of.” Hearing a peal of laughter she looked out the door to see the giant of a young man actually blushing and Coco clutching her sides.

“I only have a pack of four eye bolts which would be enough to secure one bed.” She was rewarded with the blonde brawler actually blushing before opening her toolkit and taking out a square box with a simple LED display. “Do you have any more in your bag of tricks?”

Umber felt a small bit of satisfaction at having come out on top of the exchange and even better from the slightly puzzled expression on Ruby’s face meaning she had kept it obtuse enough to not corrupt. 

“Are you sure you haven’t been in Vale before?” While team RUBY was setting up for securing two of their beds to the ceiling the older team leader managed to corner Pyrrha while holding up a glossy magazine. “Because it sure looks like you might have been around before.”

“I can understand why you would wonder that, she complained to me that it felt like the only reason she was hired for the shoot was because we do look a lot alike.” Looking at the cover Pyrrha grins at the title of Ballroom Dreams with a blond boy in a very stylish tuxedo, who is quite clearly Jaune with his hair slicked back, leading a red haired girl in a beautiful blue ball gown through a spin, who looked a great deal like a younger version of herself. “That’s Jaune’s sister Jillian.”

“Hey Pyrrha your suitcase is calling!” She could see more questions in the older girl’s eyes, like why would she know Jaune’s sister, or why would they look similar, but was saved by Nora from their team’s room.

More specifically it was a loud alert coming from her Scroll which was still inside her suitcase. Brushing past Coco she quickly unfastened the latches to pull out her Scroll from the divider pocket in her large upright travel bag. Expanding it she discovered a message from her older brother. 

“Received request to come to Beacon for an escort mission. Not much time but planning a side trip.” There was a basic map photo with one of the buildings highlighted. “Is this your dorm?” 

She quickly typed an affirmative response, and by now Ren and Nora were looking over her shoulder and seeing the picture the boy half chuckled half groaned. “Should I open the window?”

“Be serious Rennie.” The smaller red head grinned up at Pyrrha while laying a hand on her shoulder. “It’s safer just to go up to the roof so he doesn’t get the idea to crash through the ceiling.” 

“Coco could you show us where the roof access is?” She could only chuckle lightly at the image, but the energetic girl was right. “We’re about to have a party crasher, and I just hope not literally.”

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He was feeling good, no scratch that he was feeling amazing. Three flights of stairs up, a quick stop to drop his suitcase by one of the beds, jumping between landings on the staircase on the other end of floor beside the common room, and now a near sprint to the CCT tower and he was just starting to feel winded.

He finally stopped in the courtyard in front of the tower and bent over lightly panting between chuckles. Not only did he just beat his personal best running time he got away without getting dragged into helping with that massive pile of luggage…. Okay maybe that was a little unfair, but after it being almost a given for years now that he somehow would end up helping his sisters haul their bags around it still felt like something to celebrate, even if he knew he would pay for it later.

Straightening up he walked into the tower lobby and was a little surprised to find the Headmaster actually standing in front of the elevator, with the doors just closing behind the man he could guess that he had just stepped out if it. “Fairly impressive speed Mr. Arc,” The older man’s green eyes had a knowing twinkle to them as he took a sip from his coffee mug with the emblem of Beacon. “I had expected you to take a while longer before you were able to spare a moment so my office is currently being used to deal with other matters that will take more work to iron out then our discussion.”

“I didn’t think it would be a good idea to keep you waiting on my first day as an official student sir.” He felt his eye twitch and had to bite down on the impulse of accusing the man of intentionally trying to make more work for him with the extra luggage Umber had seemed surprised to see. 

“Take a walk with me Mr. Arc the night air will do us some good I think.” Professor Ozpin walked past Jaune and out the door emphasizing that he expected him to follow. “I noticed in your transcripts that there was no mention of advanced Aura or Dust training or any for that matter. Yet during the initiation you showed powerful use of one or both with your sword and shield. I am guessing that your parents must have handled that privately at home.”

“Yes….they did, mostly Lily...my mom. You’re aware she’s a Dust Enameler by trade I’m sure.” Jaune tried quickly to take the easy out that was offered, but decided to hedge with a truth. “The sword though I have Umber to thank for, she discovered a hidden compartment and a device using Dust crystals.”

“Very interesting, I thank you for telling me.” The man’s voice did indicate some surprise at the revelation. “Please do not take this the wrong way Mr. Arc. while I am sure your mother’s skills are first rate we make it a policy to trust but verify. So with that understanding I have modified your schedule to include our introductory classes to Aura and Dust use. If you wish to test out of them you certainly may, but it could be enlightening to see the courses through.” 

A heartbeat passed and a second. “I’m afraid that was the full extent of what I wished to discuss with you, nothing of an absolutely critical nature, but not necessarily something to be mentioned in front of a large audience.” 

“I’ll definitely take your recommendations to heart sir.” He tried not to sound to eager about it but judging by the man’s smile he probably was not successful. 

“Then allow me offer one further piece of advice Mr. Arc.” There was definite humor in the man’s voice as he continued. “It would serve you well to put just as much effort into getting back to your dorm as quickly as you made your way here.”

Jaune turned a little despondently as he nodded in acceptance of the suggestion, but as he looked back toward his dorm he noticed a glow in the sky, like a comet or a shooting star…...which on second glance it did appear to be…..heading straight for his dorm.

If he felt impressed with his run before he would have been dumbstruck with the speed he pushed himself to now. Never stopping or pausing until he made it back where he had left his team. The glow seemed to wink out just before he actually made it to the building but he didn’t take the time to look up.

Just as he made to turn on the first landing, after jumping the steps three at a time, he heard a feminine shriek coming from higher than the floor his team’s room was on. Continuing his sprint up the stairs he came to a door labeled roof access and plowed into it shield first...he wasn’t even sure when he had actually brought his sword and shield to bear.

The door opened hard enough it nearly came off its hinges and Jaune slid to a stop, somehow managing to stay on his feet staring at the sight before him. A young man that had to be over two meters tall, and built wide enough to make it look normal, was holding up both Pyrrha and Umber with a single arm around each of their waists. It took a moment longer for it to register that they were hugging him.

“See I told you whenever you make a flashy entrance something gets broken.” Umber kicked the golden greave on the young man’s leg seemingly to emphasize her point.

“Now you can’t blame that on me!” The rich baritone still carried a put upon sound that only another person with younger siblings could possibly recognize. 

“You’re still to blame since Jaune wouldn’t have come running in such a panic if you could use the stairs like a normal person.” He really was torn between laughing in relief, or sighing in sympathy for the guy when Pyrrha joined in.

“So this is Jaune Arc then.” The young man set the girls down, and walked over to clap him on the shoulder. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance Jaune, I’m Zander DeMacedon.” It wasn’t all that often that he had to look up to someone literally anymore, but he did now to look at the bright green eyes filled with mirth. “I have the dubious honor of being these girls older brother, and I wish you all the luck in the world.”

“If you haven’t realized it already.” The young man’s grin grew. “I can tell you with certainty you’re going to need it to survive them.”

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She felt an odd sensation, she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. She had been overjoyed to see her mother, her Aunt, and Pyrrha in Mistral. While it was a very different experience she had enjoyed traveling to Vale with Winter. Getting into her first commission to make an outfit for Jaune from his sisters, and then being asked to look after him had been fun.

When Jaune found a way to get her past Weiss in the locker room, and then went back to help Pyrrha the pieces had finally clicked that he had been, or still was, the boy whose name had faded from her memory except for calling himself the “Mysterious Fox” and rushing to aid two little girls that had gotten themselves in a fix. This felt a little like that, but was still different.

Team RUBY had just succeeded in getting two of their beds suspended from the ceiling when Pyrrha showed her the message on the Scroll. Yang had a blast teasing Yatsuhashi, posing with her arms over her head while he had no choice but to look while he held up the other end of the bed. While Umber had run the nylon straps, which she had sewn carabiners into pockets at each end of, underneath the frame and secured to the eyebolts she had placed in the ceiling.

“He never changes does he.” Umber really couldn’t help but grin at the redhead. 

“It’s Zander.” That really was an answer in and of itself.

Convincing the other teens to go up the last flight of stairs to the roof had been easy with the promise of an impressive show to start off the night. As they went up the stairs she was still struggling to identify what she was feeling when she saw the message he had sent his sister.

Once on the roof they were in time to see the safety lights of a bullhead off to the west towards Vale, before a new glow appeared just below it and started streaking towards them.

A boy had once told her when they discovered that her eyes had turned blue that it just must be her starting to look more like their dad.

When he had found her crying after her hair started growing in pure white he had tickled her until she was bawling with laughter, then hugged her tight while insisting he wouldn’t ever let go of his little sister over something as unimportant as them not actually having having the same father.

Now that same young man had just leapt out of a perfectly good bullhead and was riding a tower shield through the sky just to be able to carve out a few minutes to be able to see her.

It finally occurred to her what she was feeling, something she hadn’t felt for a few years, she was feeling warm and fuzzy like a blanket had been draped across her shoulders.

The others were mesmerized by watching the glow resolve itself into a young man essentially surfing through the air on top of a glowing nimbus. The boy named Lie Ren had the presence of mind to wave the beams of a pair of flashlights across the open space on the roof to highlight a safe landing space.

She was enjoying the show herself with maybe a little more trepidation, but took heart in Pyrrha not looking nervous. From the north another thing came up as a distraction, she sensed Jaune which was strange since she hadn’t had a chance to put another seal on his person. 

He was definitely covering the almost three kilometers between the dorm and the CCT tower quickly, glancing at her sister she saw a smile that gave away her sensing it also. It was like her Mysterious Fox, well theirs since they settled that argument by agreeing to share, had seen that there was something approaching the dorm and was pouring all his will into getting back to them. That thought left her definitely feeling warm, and maybe not in such a fuzzy way.

Her big brother came within jumping distance of the roof and kicked up the front of the shield he was standing on. The glowing ball underneath it came apart in a blast of wind slowing his forward momentum enough for him to drop lightly, well light for what she was expecting, onto the roof in front of Blake who had been trying to keep some space between the two of them. Straightening up he smiled down at her amber eyes. “Interesting, you do take quite nicely after Lady Kali.” This made the disguised faunus back up slightly, as he brushed past her to approach where Pyrrha and she were standing.

“You’ve definitely improved your tech….” She trailed off with a surprised shriek as he gathered both of them up in his arms. For the sake of balance she threw her arms around his neck and blushed when Pyrrha’s arms came over hers from the other side with a laugh.”

“Sorry to interrupt you.” Zander whispered as he pressed his forehead against hers. “But I’ve been craving this for years.” A smile was all she could offer in return, any other response seemed caught in her throat as she tightened her arms around his neck.

A loud bang broke the spell on her as she turned to see Jaune sliding to a stop, shield and sword at the ready like a rescuing hero from fairytales, to hide her growing blush she turned back to her smirking big brother hoping his red hair would give her cover. “See I told you every time you make a flashy entrance something gets broken.” She lightly kicked his armored shin with her boot when the goof’s grin only grew.

“Now you can’t blame that on me!” His voice sounded like he was taking offense at her implying he was responsible for the door, but his widening grin said he was actually calling her out on her bright pink cheeks.

“You’re still to blame since Jaune wouldn’t have come running in such a panic if you could use the stairs like a normal person.” Traitor! Even Pyrrha was teasing her now, she should just be glad Zander wasn’t looking to see she was blushing also.

“So this is Jaune Arc then.” As Zander set them down and walked towards the other boy, Pyrrha leaned forward and actually stuck out her tongue at Umber playfully, the returning feeling of comfortable closeness almost made up for her sister stealing a march on her by snagging Jaune as her partner, almost. 

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance Jaune, I’m Zander DeMacedon.” Jaune was looking at him uncertainly, if her brother was planning what she expected he had good reason to. “I have the dubious honor of being these girls older brother, and I wish you all the luck in the world.”

“If you haven’t realized it already.” Jaune was befuddled enough that the younger man didn’t even notice that the hand on the shoulder was already being used to turn him back towards the stairs. “I can tell you with certainty you’re going to need it to survive them.”

“Sorry kid, got a tight timetable here.” Jaune tried to protest as Zander started moving him back to the stairs, he called back over his shoulder. “Which room is team JNPR’s”

“Left at the bottom of the stairs and then the door on the left in the middle of the hall” Pyrrha answered while trying to contain a laugh, looking at the puzzled expression on Umber’s face made it worse. “The school sent out team announcements to our families at the same time as they made the announcement in the assembly hall.”

“That was quite a show.” Umber glanced over to to see Coco grinning at her, before strutting down the stairs followed by her team. “So the ambush is handled then?”

“Did I miss something?” Yang turned the focus back on the two of them.

“Why did he drag Jaune off?” Ruby looked adorably confused.

“I’m as lost as you are at the moment.” Umber looked to Pyrrha to supply an answer.

“Well if I were to make a guess…” The champion dragged out the word with a grin. “I would say there is likely a pair of girls back on the Argo that were insisting Zander come back with pictures of something they have been waiting a few months to see.”

“Oooooo, what is it?” Umber jumped a little as Nora suddenly was at her shoulder. “Something to do with the extra suitcase Pyr carried to the room right?”

“Jane and Jean?” When Pyrrha nodded Umber sighed. “Jaune’s sisters commissioned me to make a Huntsman’s outfit for him, and apparently since he is supposed to have it now, they are impatient.”

“Rennie we need popcorn!” The energetic girl practically dragged the quiet boy down the stairs.

“This I have to see, how about you Rubes?” Yang was quickly headed down the stairs following a cheering Ruby, Umber nodded for Pyrrha to go on, and turned to the raven haired girl glaring daggers at her with her arms crossed.

“High heels can be a pain don’t you think?” Umber smiled as the other girl kicked out a foot towards her, but was stopped before her knee actually reached as high as her waist. “Especially troublesome if someone wraps a line linking the arches they so proudly put on display together.” She flicked her right hand and a small spark of electricity flashed between the nails on her first and second fingers briefly setting alight a line of undulating light between her hand and Blake’s shoes. “Zander is definitely right I really didn’t think about it before I heard your name, but you really do look so much like your mom.”

Blake quickly started striding towards the door, only to have it slam shut. “You don’t begin to be as friendly as her though.”

The faunus girl rounded on her. “How would you begin to know anything about my family?”

“I traveled to menagerie once when my Mom and da...my Uncle Alex went there to negotiate a trade agreement. They met with your grandfather for this of course, and while her father was meeting with them your mom treated Pyrrha and I to tea. I was really sad to hear he passed away, he seemed very nice when I talked to him, but it could have just because I was eight and he joked I reminded him of his granddaughter who was away with her father.” Umber waited a moment to gage her reaction, and when it seemed like she stopped planning to attack or run continued. “I know that for the last four years your father has had a standing request for any news about you be passed along to him. Judging by Zander making the connection I would say you have a week at most until the next time a VTC ship puts into port in Menagerie before they find out that you’re here.”

She saw the bow the other girl was wearing droop and decided to offer an olive branch. “If you would like I can probably arrange for it to be done through a call from you personally, but that’s the most I can offer.”

“Menagerie is out of range of the CCT.” Blake looked up with narrowed eyes. “How could you possibly arrange direct communication there?”

“My Aunt Allison hasn’t ever trusted the good graces of Atlas to not throttle or cut off the access to the CCT.” Umber waved a hand towards the green glowing tower to the north. “So one of her major projects since becoming president of the VTC was to develop a communications network that turned every ship coming out of the Vale Shipyard into a relay. As a favor for a teammate I could ask them to let you use it to talk to your parents.” She smiled at the brief hopeful look in the other girl’s face.

“What do you want from me for this?” The look of suspicion quickly returned to her eyes.

“To clear the air and not start a fight.” Umber sighed as she took her Scroll from the pocket of her dress. “Maybe I just want to feel like I can actually do something.” She expanded her scroll and quickly flicked through the notices waiting on it. Stopping on a news article bearing the bladed snowflake she held it up for the other girl to see. “I couldn’t even hope they would use a decent picture of me.” 

Blake’s eyes widened slightly as she read the press release of Jacques Schnee congratulating both his heiress, and his younger faunus daughter, of successfully enrolling in Beacon Academy. The article went on to say how proud he was of both of them, especially with how far the helpless girl he found orphaned on the streets of Mantle had come.

“You don’t seem like a helpless orphan to me.” Blake raised a questioning eyebrow at her.

“Neither did dear Jacques have that impression when I strangled him with his own tie from across the room.” Umber’s smile was definitely predatory as she indulged in the memory. 

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The crimson haired girl smiled as she walked down the stairs. Peeking into the common room she found Nora cheering as her partner found a package of popcorn kernels among some previous tenants leftover snack supplies in the cupboard, if they were any good at all she was certain the boy could manage. Fox and Yatsuhashi were sitting on the common room couch quietly enjoying the antics of the new students. Turning down the hall she found the leader of team CFVY standing guard on team JNPR’s door with Velvet?, a sweet name for the shy girl, standing next to her with a camera.

“So Jane and Jean Arc?” Coco smiled as she turned to face her. “The twin terrors of team JJGR that graduated last year?” The older girl casually studied her with a widening smile. “I can see why their younger sister could be mistaken for you, or you mistaken for their sister.”

“Where did you hear their names?” Unless the young woman had super hearing as a semblance she couldn’t have overheard Umber, except.

“I….I heard Zander mention them to...Jaune.” The smaller brunette offered nervously.

“Poor kid looked white as a sheet before your big bro closed the door to the room.” Coco nodded towards the room. “So I had to ask my girl here to fill me in on what she overheard.”

Pyrrha smiled as she stepped past them and knocked on the door. Hearing movement she took a small step to the left and turned just a little to the right as the door opened. “Hey sis? What’s” Zander quickly raised his arm to block the view of Jaune pulling his hoodie off that she tilted her head to sneak a peek of. “Up?”

“I wanted to change into my pajamas could you hand out my suitcase?” She only grinned impishly at him having caught her. “I think I can get team RUBY to let me change in their room.”

Zander closed the door and she took a further step to the left. When he returned with her suitcase a few moments later he carefully blocked her view through the door again causing her to pout. “Save some mysteries for later.”

“Who knew miss sweet cereal could be so spicy?” Coco elbowed her blushing teammate as Pyrrha turned back towards them.

“You never heard about my Ruin Explorer combat outfit?” She grinned as she stepped past them and leaned back against the wall.

“What happened to changing?” Pyrrha just grinned in response to Coco’s question. “So just an excuse to peek?” This earned an innocent shrug. “So are all of your clothes in just that one suitcase, that’s taking traveling light to the extreme.”

“Thanks for the reminder Coco.” She only smiled at the raised eyebrow from the older girl at her speaking in such a familiar manner as she pulled out her Scroll from her pouch. Quickly scrolling through her contacts until she found an icon of a open bellflower under a golden crescent. 

It still reminded her of a sheriff's badge as she started writing a new message. ‘We made it safe and sound Jilli, you might have heard that already ;P Zander is encouraging Jaune to try on his new outfit. I promise to send you pictures, but I need a favor. Could you ask Jen to send me some of her casual clothes in a care package, I think we are about the same size. I would like to wear something that stands out a little less for a shopping trip next weekend.”

She had barely looked up from her Scroll when a tone sounded from it. ‘She says sure, but If you want to be sneaky I can do you one better :3’

‘That was fast.’ She smiled while writing a reply. ‘What are you girls up to and what is your idea?’ The response she received was a picture of herself, more specifically a picture of a poster of herself that had been included in a magazine for teen girls a few years previously. 

‘Do you still have this outfit?’

‘I have it with me for nostalgia, I think I could fit into the tactical vest, but I couldn’t zip it up let alone hope to squeeze into those fitted leather pants.’ Pyrrha sighed at the thought she really had loved that outfit.

‘Perfect!’ She raised an eyebrow at the response. ‘I found this poster I thought I lost while helping Jen put together a care package for Jaune. Considering it was with things like old Viridian’s Secret catalogs it explains why he looked at me weird when I started wearing something similar. Try wearing an upgraded version, and watch his brain melt when he realizes that he had your picture included in his naughty stash.’ She blushed a bit at the younger girl’s suggestion. ‘As for my plan...how would you like to take over big sister duties so I can study for a test?’

‘I like it enough we might not give them back :3’ 

‘You only think that right now :P’ Pyrrha chuckled at the response, and started working out the details, but her mind wasn’t on the conversation anymore. She had given Jillian permission to use the design when she decided to follow her agent’s advice and let her new sponsors pay for a new combat outfit and armor for the second time she entered the Mistral Regional tournament. 

For the life of her she could not remember why she decided to now. She loved that outfit, had even been planning to make the design a little more racy, with hot pants and knee high boots, by the time she enrolled in Beacon.

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“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Umber winced at the glare the other girl sent her as they carefully walked across the outside wall to the window that should lead to their dorm room. 

She had even moved the discussion to maybe Blake should be honest with the rest of their team when they discovered the problem, which was the door to the stairs.

Between Jaune bashing his way through it, and Umber slamming it shut with a blast of wind, the roof access door was now firmly wedged in place and was unlikely to move without liberal use of a crowbar and other tools. Fortunately Umber still had spare gravity ribbons, she would definitely need to make more soon, so they didn’t need to jump down four stories and go all the way back up.

As they looked in the window they discovered Ruby hanging a makeshift curtain around her bed while Yang was going through their bags frantically looking for something. The white haired girl stepped onto the sill and knocked on the glass.

“What are you doing out there?” Ruby jumped off her bed and dashed to the window to open it and let the older girls inside.

“We have a maintenance issue to report….in the morning.” Blake answered for them as she flipped into the room from above the window. Taking advantage of the fact Umber had to step back to allow the window to open out.

“What’s your sister looking for?” The blond girl was so engrossed in her search she didn’t respond to Umber any more then when she knocked on the glass.

“Yang thought she had packed her good camera, but it doesn’t seem to be here.” Ruby sighed at the continued search. “She wants high quality pictures to tease Jaune with.”

“I have just the thing then, we can be guaranteed to get the best camera angles even.” Umber stepped over and pulled her footlocker out from under her bed beneath Ruby’s. Opening it she took out a tan orb the size of a softball with a green band around the center. Holding it up for the the other two to see the lense in the center of the band she grinned. “We can use my Personal Combat Reconnaissance Pod or PCRP for short.” 

“It’s designed to relay position information to our team’s Scrolls, but it also takes high resolution stills and video.” Umber pressed a button an the orb floated up and started spinning to orient itself. The oddity catching Yang’s attention and diverting her from her search. 

“I told you about my friend back back in Atlas that is a tech wiz. She helped me design my weapons.” Seeing the confused looks on the other girls’ faces Umber continued. “The one I was sending the pictures of Jaune’s sword to.” 

She saw recollection dawn on the sisters faces while the other Faunus smirked like she was thinking of another meaning for that phrase, Umber tried to ignore her. “Well my friend is a bit socially awkward and isolated so we were hoping to let her see how teens interact in a less regimented setting than Atlas Academy so sometime she can be controlling this remotely. The band will glow green when she is, otherwise it just is programmed to follow me.”

“So like now?” Yang’s observation was interrupted by a chime from Umber’s scroll.

Umber grinned at the emblem on the display that looked like a power button done in neon green, before she hit the accept button. “Good evening Penny… Yup we made it safe and sound.”

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“Does she always act like that?” He really wasn’t sure what answer he wanted from the older boy, but the laugh he got in response filled him with dread. Now stripped down to his boxers he looked over the new clothes that were in the suitcase.

“Not recently.” The red haired young man leaned back against the door casually making Jaune worry if there was a need to keep him inside or someone else out. “It must be being around Umber again, or maybe it’s just you that brings out her playful side.”

He could only sigh as he pulled on one of the white silk shirts and started on the row of buttons up the center. “What makes you say that?”

“My sister has been busy the last few years with being the champion.” The older boy almost growled. “So since she had to set an example, and was without her favorite partner in crime, she has been almost too well behaved.”

“I’m surprised that you weren’t competing for the title with her.” Jaune glanced at Zander while pulling on a pair of black slacks.  
“You might have noticed I don’t do subtle well.” 

“You mean the light show that was probably visible from the docks?” Jaune sent him a look of wide eyed surprise. “Or straight up saying if I don’t play along with you then you’ll set my older sisters loose on me.” 

“Hey now I had to call in a big favor with the captain when an escort request was made by Beacon to keep them on the ship.” His heavy sarcasm did earn a laugh from the red haired young man. “I’m doing you a solid here, by keeping them at bay.”

“Why would subtle matter?” He grunted the question out as he pushed his right foot into his new boot. If he was lucky his younger sisters would not take a permanent maker to these.

“The traditional champion is supposed to be an example of the best, well it used to be soldiers, but I guess Huntsmen now can aspire to be.” Zander ran a hand through his hair. “Flashy semblances detract from the impression of pure martial skill the council wants the people to see.”

“Pyrrha's fights were fixed?” Jaune looked up in surprise from straightening his shirt.

“No the fights were on the level, but let’s just say that competitors that didn’t fit the mold they wanted were discouraged from entering. Like there was this blond haired kid that had just moved all the way from Vacuo that they said couldn’t compete because he hadn’t been a resident for at least a year.” Zander shifted away from the door. “They have a lot of old rules they can call on, and I had other responsibilities to think of over fighting with the council before any matches.”

“So why would you do me a solid with the twins?” Jaune decided to leave international politics aside and deal with some that struck closer to home instead while slipping on the rather awesome looking long coat and figuring out the closure.

“I’ve always been the big brother.” Jaune raised an eyebrow at this statement but said nothing. “It was always my job to look after my little sisters, then your mom number three came along and decided to treat me like her kid brother.” He definitely knew Joan to know the nickname she took to calling herself. “After a few years of dealing with that, and now the twins, I thought you had earned at least one reprieve after a lifetime of dealing with it.”

“The thought is appreciated I guess.” Jaune smiled at his somewhat kindred spirit as he started doing up the buttons on the right side of the coat.

“You know you always have brought out the most determined side of my sisters though.” Jaune looked up to see zander holding a Scroll in front of his face as he did up the last button. On it was a picture of three young children curled up together in a sleeping bag. “This is the only time I can think of them being bold enough to sneak in somewhere.” Jaune blushed when he realized the picture showed him nibbling on one of the little blond girl’s fox ears in his sleep while the redhead on his other side nuzzled his neck. “It was then that I realized they had found someone I could trust to look after them in the future or soooommmmm…..”

As the young man’s voice stretched out Jaune looked up to see everything in the room had come to a near standstill.


End file.
